The Effects of Gravity
by AinsleyAisling
Summary: Panicked at the thought of being left alone, Glinda manages to convince Elphaba not to fly off the handle - but at what cost? Musicalverse. COMPLETELY forgot I had been posting this here, so sorry for not getting the rest of it up till now!
1. Prologue: To the Emerald City

**Glinda**

From the moment they stepped off the train and got their first glimpse of the city towering behind the extravagant (and obviously new) Emerald City Station, both Elphaba and Glinda stood captivated. Even in the slowly fading evening light, with bright oranges and pinks and purples streaking across the horizon, the predominant feature of the city was still blindingly apparent.

"It's so incredibly . . ."

"Green," Glinda finished for her roommate, lifting one hand to shade her eyes against the setting sun.

"I mean, I knew it would be, obviously, but . . ."

"Don't be offended, Elphaba," Glinda said, "but it's even greener than you."

Elphaba set her suitcase down on the platform and dug in her pocket for the map the conductor had given them. "In daylight it must be -"

"Absolutely dazzling!" Glinda exclaimed.

"I was going to say 'blinding,' but all right." Finding the map, Elphaba traced her finger from the prominent representation of the train station to the carefully circled address of the hotel Madame Morrible had arranged. "Let's -"

"- find the hotel, yes, please!"

"_May_ I finish a sentence?"

"Sorry." Glinda slipped her hand into Elphaba's free one. "I'm just so excited!"

"I could tell."

"Oh, come on, Elphaba. You can't tell me you're not ready to burst - it's _your_ meeting with the Wizard tomorrow, after all."

Elphaba smiled down at the map in her hand. "I'm plenty excited. But if we all got excited the way you do, I believe something would explode."

"You're one to talk. Have you figured out the way?"

"To explode things?"

"To the _hotel_."

"Oh. Yes." Elphaba tilted the map so that Glinda could read it as well. "It's only a few blocks, want to walk?"

"If you think it's safe."

Elphaba laughed. "Don't worry, I'll protect you."

Glinda grinned up at her as they started up one brilliant emerald street. "Remember, here you can't scare people off just by looking all green at them. They'll just say, 'so what, you're green, so's everything else.'"

"Come to think of it, in the light through those windows there, even your hair is beginning to look a little . . . verdant."

"Now Elphie, that's just not nice."

Their hotel suite, which Madame Morrible had assured Elphaba would be "taken care of" by the Wizard himself, was a blessed relief after six blocks of nothing but bright green. The dying sunlight through their west-facing, emerald-tinted windows turned the red upholstery an unappealing shade of brown, but by then they were ready to look at something drab. Glinda had even begun to feel as though she would never complain about Elphaba's dark blue and black wardrobe ever again.

"How do they keep from going mad?" she asked, dropping into a shadowy red-brown chair with one hand falling over her eyes. "I hope you don't mind, Elphie dear, if I just don't look at you for a few minutes? Please don't take it the wrong way."

"I can barely stand the sight of myself," Elphaba agreed, perching on the end of the red-brown bed. "This must be how other people feel all the time!" Glinda may not have been able to see her friend's sly grin, but she could hear it clearly in the other girl's voice.

"I'd throw a pillow at you if I were willing to look for one," she grumbled.

"Here." Something soft landed in her lap. Glinda picked it up and tossed it back in the direction of Elphaba's voice.

"Did I get you?" she asked, eyes still closed.

"Miles off," was the cheerful reply.

"Oh, well."

Something rustled across the room, and she could sense Elphaba's presence coming closer. Cool fingers lifted her wrist from off of her face and she was wrapped from behind in only slightly warmer arms. "Tomorrow we'll have to get some of those glasses we saw everyone wearing," Elphaba promised.

"That'll help with the glare but not the color."

Elphaba pulled away, leaving Glinda's neck feeling cold. "Let's draw the curtains - it's almost dark anyway and then I strongly suspect this room will be a much nicer color than mud-brown."

Glinda kept her eyes closed until she heard the swish of the curtains sliding along the rod, then watched quietly as Elphaba lit the lamps in the now-dim room. In the faint yellowish glow they provided the furniture was indeed blood-red - a rather intense shade for upholstery, but then anything was better than green.

"Better?" Elphaba asked. "Or should I go and stand behind you, where you can't see me?"

Glinda laughed and shook her head.

"Are you sure?"

Pulling her tired body out of the chair, Glinda crossed the room and put her hands on Elphaba's shoulders. "That bright faux-emerald shade may have scarred my vision for life, but _you_ are lovely." Her eyes flickered down to the bedspread, the corner of which was brushing against Elphaba's leg. "Although now I see why you don't wear red, and I'm very sorry for ever suggesting it."

"Perhaps the sheets will be an improvement." Elphaba backed out of Glinda's grip and pulled back the bedcovers. "Aha - white."

"White is a wonderful color," Glinda agreed. She stretched herself out on the rumpled bedclothes and patted the space next to her. "Come on, you look dead on your feet as well."

"I don't know," Elphaba hedged, even as she stiffly lowered herself onto the bed and swung her legs up to rest beside Glinda's. "You were pretty mad the last time I let you fall asleep in your clothes."

"I'm not going to fall asleep," Glinda murmured, although she could feel her eyelids growing heavier.

"Galinda?"

Elphaba's pronunciation of her old-real name was so subtle that Glinda almost missed it. She looked over to see Elphaba stretched out on her side, propped up on one elbow. "Hmm?"

Elphaba's gaze flickered downward for a moment before she spoke. "I'm glad you came with me. It's - it would have been so different, by myself. So - thank you. For being here."

Glinda rolled over to match her friend's posture. "You know - it was really nice of you, to ask me along to distract me and all. But you know you could have asked anyway. If you were just nervous about coming. I would still have gone with you, for any reason."

Elphaba smiled a little shyly. "Thanks."

Returning the smile, Glinda lay back down and scooted herself closer so that she rested in the curve created by Elphaba's body and her elbow. "That's just what friends do."

Behind her head, she could feel Elphaba sliding her arm out and laying her head down on it, with her cheek resting against Glinda's hair. The silence stretched out long and comfortable in the dim room, and at last Glinda sighed and said, "Do we really have to go back on Saturday?"

Again she could hear the smile in Elphaba's voice. "To school?"

"To school, to . . . Fiyero, to any of it. Can't we just stay here?" The words tumbled out in a sleepy rush and she didn't bother to restrain them.

Elphaba shifted to settle herself more comfortably against Glinda's side. "Sure," she said softly. "I'm beginning to see the attraction myself."

"Good."

"Of course, then you'd have to look at all that green every day."

"Ugh, you're right. Back to Shiz it is."


	2. Chapter 1

**Glinda**

Glinda let herself wake up slowly at first that morning. She was in an enormous, warm, surprisingly comfortable bed with her feet perfectly tangled in the bedclothes and her head resting against the side of Elphaba's arm (_not_ her shoulder - Glinda had learned the hard way that Elphaba's shoulders were sharper than her temper). More surprisingly, Elphaba herself was asleep. If it had been Glinda's meeting with the Wizard that afternoon, she didn't think she'd still be sleeping at -

Wait. The Wizard. The Emerald City. She suddenly felt wide awake. This was their morning for sightseeing, for shopping, for . . . her brain started its own circular internal dialogue. _All that green. But shopping and palaces and things. But the green. But cafes and shopping._ Glinda sighed. A person could live with the green for one day, she supposed. With a bit of reluctance that had more to do with waking Elphaba than with the color of the streets outside, she gently ran the backs of her fingers up and down her friend's arm.

"Elphie," she said softly, rubbing her knuckles against Elphaba's arm with slightly increased urgency. "Come on, Elphie. Morning."

Elphaba drifted back to awareness slowly, her eyelids fluttering. At this unaccustomed proximity Glinda noticed something she had never seen before, and it made her smile fondly - Elphaba had tiny, almost invisible freckles near the corners of her eyes. "Hey," she whispered, letting that fondness seep into her tone. She turned her hand over and scratched lightly at Elphaba's arm with her fingernails. "Wake up, I'm getting lonely here."

Elphaba's eyes opened and focused on Glinda's face for a long moment; then she pulled away and sat up with an awkward haste. "All right," she said, looking down at her lap. "I'm awake. Sorry."

Glinda was confused and, if she admitted it, the tiniest bit hurt by Elphaba's sudden need for distance, but she forced a smile and said, "It's all right, we should just get out and enjoy the day. Right?"

Elphaba lifted her head at a slight angle and offered an apologetic smile in return. "Right."

"Good." Glinda reached out and brushed aside the curtain of dark hair that nearly covered one side of Elphaba's face. "Let's go."

When they finally reached the streets, both girls stood blinking into the bright sunshine for an uncertain moment, staring at a transformed city. The buildings were all still green, of course, but in the rush of the morning they were accompanied by bustling citizens and draped with unfurled banners, signs, and shop awnings in varying shades. Green streamers blended with pale yellow, blue, and pink ones, and ordinary goods such as bread and fish filled the stalls with their normal, beautiful, not-green colors.

"This is . . . not so bad," Elphaba said.

"No - it's kind of pretty." Glinda took a deep breath of Emerald City air, which suddenly seemed full of promise. From their position on the corner outside the hotel she could see the spires and domes of almost the entire city, buildings full of important people doing important, interesting, exciting things. The few tired souls they had seen on the streets the night before had been transformed into elegant crowds looking wise and sophisticated and moving as if they had somewhere fascinating to go. She tugged on Elphaba's hand and pulled her into the bustle, needing to feel that crowd moving around her instead of past her.

By the time they stopped for lunch Glinda could sense that somewhere deep inside herself she was probably exhausted, but the exhilaration of the day was keeping her afloat. Even Elphaba had a look of wonder on her face that Glinda had never seen before. Excitement and affection flooded through her, and she spontaneously took hold of Elphaba's hand over their table and said, "Let's live here."

Elphaba blinked at her as if emerging from a waking dream. "What?"

"Let's live here, when we're done with school. You and me."

"Together?"

The uncertainty in Elphaba's tone made Glinda tighten her hold on her friend's hand. "Of course together. You don't like being my roommate?"

Elphaba didn't smile exactly, but the emotion showed in her eyes. "Of course I do."

"Well then." Glinda released her hand and picked up her own fork, but she looked earnestly at Elphaba instead of at her plate. "Can't you imagine us let loose on this place?"

Elphaba laughed then. "Yes, I can."

"You're my best friend, you know, Elphie."

"You're mine, too." The words were spoken softly, but then Elphaba coughed and added, in something closer to her normal tone, "And not only because you're basically my _only_ friend."

"I feel so very loved," Glinda replied with a grin.

Glinda wasn't sure how so much could have gone so wrong so very quickly. One moment the Wizard's terrifying gold head had been booming questions at them and she had been instinctively trying to hide behind Elphaba, taking some little comfort in the feeling of Elphaba's arms around her waist; the next moment she had been caught between awe and nausea as she saw for the first time the real extent of her best friend's power; and now she was clutching Elphaba tightly while somewhere below them their trusted teacher told the world that Elphie was twisted, dangerous, wicked.

It would have been horrid for anyone else to have done, Glinda thought, but for their headmistress - the one who had encouraged and fussed over and petted Elphaba since the day she arrived - for her to dare to say the one thing that would hurt Elphaba more than anything else - to use her skin color against her - to call her monstrous, unnatural - sent an unfamiliar white-hot rage through Glinda's entire body. She felt that if Madame Morrible had come into this room with them right at this moment, she could cheerfully have killed the woman on the spot.

And then quite all of a sudden Glinda had bigger things to worry about. Like the momentary look of rejection on Elphaba's face, and the way she was climbing onto the windowsill with apparently every intention of flying off.

Up until this moment, Glinda had really thought she could continue to be the strong one. She had been able to swallow her further objections, able to smile, albeit weakly, able to wrap that old cloak around Elphaba's shoulders and try to offer her some comfort. She had been able to keep from throwing herself into Elphaba's arms, because she understood what Elphie was doing and why she had to do it, and she understood that she shouldn't make it more difficult for her to leave. Even though at the beginning of this wonderful terrible day she couldn't have imagined that she would be saying goodbye to Elphaba at the end of it, she had almost been able to do it. She had almost been able to kiss her goodbye and step away - until she actually saw Elphaba's hand reaching for the window latch.

Then her heart raced to match the insistent pounding of the guards' bayonets on the door, and she understood completely what she would be facing. Not just life without Elphaba. Not just school without her, not just having to explain to Nessa what had happened to her sister, not just facing their dormitory room alone. Not just facing the future they had so gaily planned, alone. Not just going back to being Galinda Upland, adored by all and really loved by none. It would be returning to the Wizard and to Madame Morrible alone, finding out what they had planned for her now that she knew too many uncomfortable truths. It would be returning to that den of manipulation and treachery and trying to navigate its traps and pitfalls, alone. And if there was one thing Glinda understood very well, it was that she was not cut out for _that_.

"No,_don't_!" The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she clapped a hand over her mouth in horror.

Elphaba paused with her hand still raised. "What, what's wrong?" she asked.

The nervous tremble in Elphaba's voice spread somehow to Glinda's entire body; she shook with panic and desperately cried out, "Couldn't there maybe be another way? Do you really have to -?"

Although her voice was still unsteady, Elphaba's expression of stern resolve softened and she said gently but firmly, "You know I can't stay, Glinda, you _know_ I can't go along with what they have planned for me, I can't."

"Then don't," Glinda said, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. "Don't do what they want, but don't - don't go."

"You're not making sense," Elphaba said. Her voice was still gentler than her words, but her eyes glanced nervously at the door, which had begun to shake fiercely under the pressure of the guards' attack.

Necessity made Glinda clever; anything she had ever heard about politics raced through her brain and she blurted, "Do it from inside, Elphie, don't you understand? Do what you want, do_everything_ you want, but take the Wizard's offer, let him set you up in his government, and then -"

"Stage a coup?" Elphaba asked a little harshly.

"Well, who's he going to listen to, you, or Morrible? You have all the power, Elphie, you know she doesn't have half as much, you can do so much, but you don't have to do it as a fugitive, you don't, you don't -"

Elphaba closed her eyes briefly, effectively cutting off Glinda's desperate torrent of words. "Galinda, I can't -"

It was the sound of her given name on Elphaba's lips that finally broke Glinda - with an audible sob in her voice she gasped, "_Please_, Elphie, please!" She could feel the tears streaming down her face and didn't bother to wipe them away.

Elphaba hesitated for just a moment too long. It was long enough for Glinda to reach out and take her hand, and at the touch Elphaba's face crumpled as though her heart were breaking. She took one half-step down from the windowsill onto a nearby crate - and with a creaking smash of splintering wood, the Wizard's guards burst through the door and surrounded them.

"Stop it!" Glinda shouted wildly as four of them reached for Elphaba. "I told the Wizard I would fetch her back and I am - she's coming, don't touch her!"

Two of the guards took hold of Glinda's arms as well, and one of them jeered, "Well, if she's coming anyway, then there's no harm in us escorting you both back, is there? Just to make sure you don't get lost on the way."

Tears of fear and anger continued to flow down her face as Glinda tried to catch Elphaba's eye, but the guards were already dragging her out the door and down the stairs. As Glinda's guards followed, Glinda could see to her horror that the guards were taking no pains to be gentle with Elphaba, despite the fact that the girl was not struggling or fighting back. They prodded her with the ends of their bayonets as if teasing a wild animal, but she remained subdued, walking among them with her head bowed. Waves of shame and nausea washed over Glinda and she felt as though she might never stop crying.

When at long last they reached the door to the throne room, one of the few guards who had remained on watch there thrust out his bayonet to halt his fellows. "Just her," he said, gesturing to Elphaba. "They want her by herself."

"No!" Glinda cried out helplessly. Secure in their capture, the guards loosened their formation around both girls and Glinda was able to move next to Elphaba and take her hand. What awful things could they do to Elphaba in there alone, what could they not want Glinda to see? It didn't bear thinking about. "No, I'll go with her, please!"

"Just her," the guard repeated. He was speaking to the other guards, not to Glinda.

Elphaba turned. Her jaw was set and her eyes were dry. "It's all right," she said to Glinda. "I knew what could happen."

Glinda tightened her hold on Elphaba's hand. "But -"

Elphaba's hand tightened in hers as well, and her expression silenced Glinda. In those few minutes Elphaba had ceased to be a schoolgirl of eighteen - she was a woman grown, mature, stern, sad - and, if Glinda were honest with herself, she looked every bit a witch. "It's all right," she repeated, her eyes holding Glinda's.

Completely at a loss for anything she could possibly say at this moment, Glinda stretched up on her toes and pressed a quick, firm kiss to Elphaba's lips. When she had pulled away, Elphaba closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to walk into the throne room.

**Elphaba**

With the heat of Glinda's kiss still burning on her lips, Elphaba strode with a confidence she didn't feel up to the Wizard's throne. She willed herself not to flinch as the giant head boomed, "Bring the witch to me! Bring her here!" At least none of the poor maimed monkeys were in sight - she felt the weight of her crime heavily enough without having them before her.

When the guards had bowed, with much banging of bayonets, and departed, the Wizard emerged from behind the head and said, "So you're back."

Elphaba breathed hard through her nose, trying to force some control into her shaking limbs, and shrugged. "I'm back."

"Did you reconsider, or were you caught?"

Thankfully, the Wizard's smarmy grin irritated her into a sort of calm. "I reconsidered," she said. "Though the hospitality of my reception left something to be desired."

"Decided you'd rather have the power and the glory after all?"

She shrugged again. "Maybe."

"Or maybe you were afraid."

"Or maybe I just realized Glinda was hopeless without me," Elphaba said, hoping he hadn't noticed the tremble in her voice when she pronounced her friend's name. "You got your claws well and truly into her, didn't you? I don't want to think about what she could do if she were unsupervised."

The Wizard crossed his arms and sat down comfortably on the steps in front of the giant throne. "Your esteemed headmistress led me to believe you were the only one with any talent - for sorcery, anyway. She seemed to think that Miss_Ga_linda's talents were of the more . . . ornamental variety."

Elphaba hesitated, calculating. Was Madame Morrible here somewhere? Hiding behind the throne? And more importantly - what did the Wizard want most to hear? That Glinda was an empty-headed but rather pretty idiot whose blind loyalty might be enough to keep the otherwise unloved and unwanted Elphaba in line? Or that he could have two formidable witches for the price of one? She swallowed against the sick feeling in her stomach and casually draped herself onto the steps beside the Wizard.

"Maybe," she said quietly, "we don't tell our esteemed headmistress_everything_."

The Wizard's eyebrows lifted. "All right," he said. "I'm curious."

Elphaba dropped her voice even lower, so that he had to lean closer to hear her. "Madame Morrible has never liked Glinda, not from the first. Glinda was too much of a rival, even as a student."

"And you weren't?" the Wizard asked, matching her tone.

Elphaba laughed harshly, real bitterness giving it an authentic flavor. "Look at me," she replied. "But a sorceress who looks like Glinda . . ." She shook her head. "You can see the danger. At first Morrible refused to teach her, but I insisted . . ."

"Yes, this she told me."

"Glinda hasn't been doing very well in class, but you should see the kind of classes we've been having. With that kind of discouragement . . . anyway, we've been practicing together in our room and I can assure you, Madame Morrible has no idea what Glinda's capable of." Neither had Elphaba, or Glinda for that matter, but if this worked they could worry about the details later. Elphaba's entire body throbbed with one urgent need:_Get Glinda out of the palace free and unharmed._

The Wizard's bloodshot green eyes looked intensely into hers. "So she can . . . perform, for you?"

_For_ her? There was a slight, faint undertone of some kind of innuendo in his words - Elphaba grasped at it, but couldn't quite make it out. She nodded slowly, feeling her brow contract unwillingly in confusion. "- yes."

"And your agreement is her agreement?" He lifted his chin, held her gaze. "I was fairly certain from her behavior earlier, but she'll - she'll do what's necessary, to be with you?"

_Oh._ Elphaba couldn't keep her eyes from widening at the realization of what he believed, nor could she keep the muscles of her neck and jaw from tightening - but luckily, he would take that as surprise that he had guessed correctly. Her slight gasp was met with a knowing smile from the Wizard, so she nodded and forced the words past her lips. "Yes, she'll -she'll do anything I ask her to." Oz help her and Glinda both, that part at least might even be true.

The Wizard nodded. "That's what I needed to know." He pushed himself to his feet, looking down at her. "I don't mean to offend, but she's too weak for me to trust her constancy. I think she'll go any way she's pushed. I don't trust you either, but I trust your intelligence. I trust you know what's sensible. And if you're the one pushing her, then I can trust her, too." He disappeared behind the throne, leaving Elphaba suddenly boneless and feeling deeply unclean.

"Guards!" the Wizard's false voice boomed. "Bring in the other witch!" Elphaba thought that only she could have caught the slight hesitation before he said, "the other witch." But if that was what he believed Glinda truly was . . . well, that seemed to be enough to keep her safe for now.

_That, and that he thinks she's your -_ Elphaba shoved that thought down, to be dealt with once they were out of here. She got herself shakily to her feet and waited for Glinda to be brought in.

Glinda entered the throne room with her eyes half-squinted and a look of trepidation plain on her tear-streaked face. Her sudden gasping relief when she caught sight of Elphaba made clear that she had expected to find Elphaba missing or possibly dead before her. She made to push past her guards, and the Wizard's voice boomed out, "Let her go!"

Unrestrained, Glinda dashed the rest of the way across the throne room and threw herself onto Elphaba. "Thank Oz," she murmured into Elphaba's shoulder. Her breath hitched and she sniffled quietly. "I was so worried, Elphie, are you all right?"

Warring emotions confronted Elphaba; she was profoundly grateful that the Wizard had not wanted Glinda in the room while he discussed her relationship to Elphaba, and yet shame washed over her for telling such a lie even outside of Glinda's knowledge. She forced herself to take a deep breath and groped for a sense of calm, of sternness, of something like blankness. Stiffly she raised her arms and embraced Glinda, but not tightly. "I'm fine," she said in a steady voice. "Stop crying now, everything's fine."

She could feel Glinda's chest heave against her as the smaller girl struggled to control her breathing. "I will," Glinda said very quietly. "I'm all right."

Firmly but gently, Elphaba put Glinda away from her. "I think we can leave now." She raised her voice and called out to the floating head above them. "Can't we?"

"You may return to your university," the head boomed. "Instructions will be sent."

"Th-" The words stuck in her throat, but Elphaba forced them out. This day was making quite the politician of her, she thought bitterly. "Thank you, Your Ozness." She placed a hand on Glinda's waist to turn her and steer her toward the door. The columns of guards watched them suspiciously, but they were not stopped.

They walked in silence. At the gate of the palace Elphaba realized she had been holding her breath; she drew in a gasping lungful of air, but didn't speak. Glinda walked beside her quieter than she had ever been. Elphaba's head pounded, not with pain but with pressure, power restrained, the blood throbbing through her veins. She could feel it all gathering like an invisible weight around her and on her, like the pressing of deep water over her head: despair, something too profound to be called disappointment, disillusionment, injured pride, lost freedom, fear, guilt, and the almost unbearable weight of the love that had kept her here. These emotions thickened the air and made it difficult for her to draw breath, she had to fight against them like an opposing current as she walked. _Get back to the hotel_, she told herself firmly. _Just get back to the hotel._ It became her new mantra, a safe point of focus.

As soon as the door of their room had closed behind them, Elphaba fell onto the bed and sobbed tearlessly, pressure closing her throat and choking her. Her world went black; she remained awake, but incapable of opening her eyes. The release of tension, the loss of adrenaline, the sudden freedom from any need to be strong, allowed her despair to break through and take control. The bed shifted and warmth enveloped her - Glinda, curling up behind Elphaba's prone body and holding her with all the strength she could muster. Her words forced their way into Elphaba's hearing through the roaring that had taken over her ears: "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Elphie."

Then there was a firm hand grasping her chin, another hand stroking insistently over her face, smoothing back her hair, trying to open her eyes. "Look at me, Elphie," Glinda chanted as if it were a spell she were trying to master, "look at me, open your eyes, come on Elphie, look at me, please."

Perhaps it _was_ a spell, or perhaps Glinda's charm had its own magic after all, but Elphaba found herself unwillingly blinking, looking up into her friend's eyes. Glinda's face was set in determination - it seemed that Elphaba's weakness had the power to make Glinda strong. "Are you very angry with me, Elphie?" she asked.

Elphaba reached deep into herself, but she could find no anger. She understood that Glinda had been weak, that Glinda had pleaded with her to stay because she was not strong on her own, and that without Glinda's interference she would be flying away, a fugitive but free. But there was no anger. "Why should I be angry with you?" she said finally. The rough, raspy quality of her own voice surprised even herself. "You - you were right. You knew the smart thing to do."

Right was not the same thing as forgiven, and Glinda clearly knew it. "Do you hate me?" she whispered. "For getting us into this?"

After this afternoon Elphaba wouldn't have thought there was anything left of her heart to break, but the look on Glinda's face proved to her that a heart could indeed be broken twice. She slowly shook her head and rasped, "I'll never hate you. I couldn't." She sighed. "Anyway you didn't get us into this. I did, it was me."

Glinda bent to kiss her forehead, and Elphaba reached for the sense of emptiness she had almost achieved in the Wizard's throne room. It was a relief when she felt herself beginning to go cold.

Glinda sat up again, and Elphaba noted with detachment that the marks of tears still showed on her face. "Come on," Glinda said gently. "Let's get ready for bed." Obediently Elphaba let herself be raised to a sitting position, and she sat impassive as Glinda unbuttoned her dress and tugged it off her shoulders. Glinda hissed sharply as the dress fell away, and exclaimed, "Oh, _Elphie_, you should have said. Doesn't it hurt?"

"Doesn't what hurt?"

Ignoring her modesty, Glinda also undid the fastenings of the shift Elphaba wore under her dress and parted it to run her hands over bare skin. "These bruises, Elphie - is this what the guards did to you?"

Elphaba twisted to look over her shoulder - on her shoulder itself, and at the small of her back she could see purplish-blue bruises on the exposed green skin that looked as though they ran onto the rest of her back and sides as well. "I suppose they'll hurt later." She didn't want to tell Glinda about the sense of numbness, however welcome, that was spreading through her body.

Glinda's hands pushed her down onto the bed so that she could slide Elphaba's dress entirely off, and then gentle fingers did up the back of her shift again. "Try to sleep," she urged, stroking Elphaba's hair back from her face. "We'll get out of here tomorrow."

The thought of Shiz - Morrible's school - broke through Elphaba's carefully achieved emptiness, and she shuddered. When she spoke, her voice felt disembodied, as if it belonged to someone else. "I can't go back yet," she said matter-of-factly. "I even know Morrible won't be there, that someone else will have taken over, but I can't do it."

"All right," Glinda said without hesitation. "We'll . . . we'll write to Nessa in the morning, and send it by express. Fiyero too. They'll smooth it over with . . . whoever. I imagine you can afford to miss a few classes, and if you'll help me, I can too."

_We've been practicing together in our room._ Elphaba fought down a wave of nausea and nodded. "Thank you," she whispered.

"What are friends for?" Glinda replied. There was an unfamiliar note of irony in her voice that Elphaba didn't like, but she refrained from commenting. Glinda didn't say another word as she drew the curtains against the fading afternoon light, undressed in the dark, and slipped into the bed with her arm draped over Elphaba's waist.


	3. Chapter 2

**Glinda**

When Glinda woke the next morning, the other side of the bed was already cold. For a moment she was terrified that Elphaba had run away and left her, but she rolled over and immediately spotted her friend sitting up in one of the armchairs, staring out the window with her bare feet pulled up under her. Elphaba had her glasses on and her long hair tumbled loose and free over her shoulders, which were left mostly bare by the simple undershift she still wore. She didn't look like a grown-up witch today; she looked like a schoolgirl lost in a daydream. Hesitant to shake her out of it, Glinda swallowed her relief and instead padded quietly over to the small closet to get dressed.

Elphaba didn't speak or appear to notice Glinda at all, until Glinda paced the room several minutes later trying to do up the buttons on the back of her dress. Although her eyes didn't seem to so much as flicker in Glinda's direction, Elphaba wordlessly stretched out one hand. Glinda stepped slowly within the reach of her roommate's arms, looking down at the floor the entire time, and allowed Elphaba to finish the buttons for her.

The silent tension pressed on Glinda, constricting her chest and urging her to say something, _anything_; but then Elphaba finished her task by laying, for a long moment, the palm of one cool hand against the back of Glinda's neck. Even though Glinda couldn't see her, the gesture felt so tender that she closed her eyes and leaned back into the touch. She turned her head finally, letting Elphaba's hand slip to her shoulder, and saw Elphaba giving her a smile so fond and sad at the same time that it made her breath catch.

She spent the rest of the morning mostly watching Elphaba, and trying to persuade her to eat bits of breakfast. Elphaba continued to stare out the window in a haze, taking notice of Glinda only when the other girl occasionally touched her hand. They sat that way in silence until the sun had risen enough to cast shadows on the buildings across the street, and then Elphaba suddenly spoke.

"Did you mean what you said yesterday?" Even after only one night of disuse her voice was scratched and creaking.

Glinda set down the tea she had been mostly pretending to drink. "I said a lot of things yesterday," she said without guile. "I think I meant all of them."

Elphaba nodded as if that were the exact answer she had expected. "I mean - about the Wizard. About - working from the inside."

_Curses._ Elphaba _would_ pick on the one thing Glinda had maybe not entirely meant. Not that she didn't believe Elphaba could do such a thing; in fact - now that they were in this situation - she was fairly certain that she would. But that had been something to cry out in desperation, something to make Elphaba stop and consider. She sincerely hoped that Elphaba didn't expect her to have a plan. "What about it?"

"Do you really think I should? I mean - is that what you think would be the best thing to do?"

Glinda had to bite her lip for a moment to keep from saying _Well it seemed a lot better than flying off to be a fugitive for the rest of your life._ "Yes," she was finally able to say confidently. "Yes, I do."

Elphaba took a deep breath and paused before asking, "Will - will you help me?"

To _this_ question at least, she knew the answer. She had known, in some way, that she was committing herself to this the second she'd reached out to detain Elphaba. "Of course I will," she said. "Though I don't know what kind of help I'll be."

Elphaba actually laughed softly at that. "You can set things on fire without even trying," she said. "That's a useful talent." When Glinda laughed in response, Elphaba finally turned to face her. "You're in this now too," she said seriously. "I think I should be sorry for that, but - I'm selfishly glad there's someone in it with me."

Elphaba's narrow body took up barely half of the available space in the armchair she had curled herself into. Glinda crossed to her in two steps and eased herself into the remaining space, letting one knee drape over Elphaba's lap. Before she spoke, she decided that she was tired of seeing her own reflection in Elphaba's glasses, and she reached up and carefully took them off. "I'm here," she said, holding on to Elphaba's hand. "I'm in it with you."

How easy it was, in the end, for Glinda the good girl to commit herself to something so awful and impossible. After all, treason plotted by two schoolgirls was probably still treasonous.

They stayed in the Emerald City for another two days, remaining mostly in their room despite the fact that the palace had publicly revoked the warrant for Elphaba's arrest. On their last day, Elphaba didn't speak at all - not when Glinda gently reminded her that Nessa and Fiyero would be expecting them on the evening train, not when Glinda guided her patiently toward the station, and not even when Glinda misread the city map and led them four blocks out of their way.

On the train Glinda clung tightly to Elphaba's hand, hoping to pass some comfort and strength through that connection as they flew past the fields and forests of central Oz, toward the edges of the city of Shiz. Elphaba closed her eyes as they approached the Shiz station and the platform where they had said goodbye to Nessa and Fiyero six days earlier. With her eyes still closed she didn't see Fiyero waiting for them on the platform, but Glinda did.

She bustled Elphaba out of the compartment, wondering why he had come to meet them, whether he had been worried or angry or hurt that she had gone with Elphaba without telling him, whether he had missed her. He came to them on the steps of the still-smoking train, just as Glinda was beginning to prod Elphaba before her onto the platform. Without a word of greeting he wrapped an arm around Elphaba's waist and took her suitcase from her hand.

"Fiyero!" Glinda exclaimed. "I didn't think you would -"

He hushed her quickly, pulling Elphaba down the remaining steps and tucking her against his side. She could see now that his face was pale and tense, and his jaw tightly clenched. "We don't have time to talk, we're getting her back to your dormitory as fast as we can. Stay on her other side and don't let go - don't look at anyone, don't talk to anyone, just walk, _fast_."

"All right," Glinda said, fighting down a surge of panic. She had never seen Fiyero look so serious, and the nervous way he kept watching Elphaba was really frightening her. She took firm hold of Elphaba's arm and let Fiyero lead them hastily toward the university campus.

They walked in tense silence, all three of them staring determinedly at the ground. Glinda was afraid even to glance up to see whether anyone had noticed them. When they reached the girls' dormitory, Fiyero kicked the door open without comment and pulled them inside. "Upstairs, hurry," he said, following Glinda into the stairwell in complete disregard of the rules.

Glinda released Elphaba's arm to shut the door of their room behind the three of them; Fiyero, on the other hand, held onto the still-silent green girl until he had seated both of them on Glinda's bed. Finally he looked up at Glinda and asked tersely, "What in Oz _happened_ in the Emerald City?"

Glinda sank into her desk chair in an exhausted, ungraceful manuever that she normally would never have allowed Fiyero to see. "I'll tell you," she said, "but first would you like to explain why we rushed here like that?"

He glanced warily at Elphaba. "Well, the night after the two of you left - without telling anyone, by the way, Glinda -"

She winced. "I'm sorry, I know. I didn't think of it."

He waved off her interruption. "Messengers came hurrying from the Emerald City, announcing in any pubs and restaurants that were still open that a dangerous fugitive had escaped from the palace."

Glinda was surprised at the intensity of disgust that rose within her. "Morrible," she hissed in a tone that made Fiyero stare. "She must have sent them out immediately."

"The alerts did mention her name," Fiyero said, looking a bit afraid of Glinda. "She's - the Wizard's new press secretary? How did that happen?"

"I think we can tell you," Glinda said. "But go on first. I suppose you were in one of those late-closing pubs to hear the alert yourself?"

He shrugged as if to say _What did you expect?_ "Well at first I didn't think anything really - except to worry that Elphaba, and I assumed you too, were in the City with a dangerous criminal loose. Even when they said something about a Witch it didn't occur to me to think it could possibly be . . ." He shook his head. "But then they said she was - well, you know. I couldn't understand it, but I knew it had to be - Elphaba." He said her name almost in a whisper, simultaneously lifting his hand and placing it high on Elphaba's back, between the sharp planes of her shoulderblades. He left it there, although even Glinda could tell from across the room that Elphaba had stiffened. "So what happened?"

"Wait," Glinda said, shaking her head. "That was the last you heard?"

"I got your express the next night, saying you were staying for a few days - but it didn't say why, or under what circumstances . . ."

"I'm sorry, I was afraid of anyone reading it."

"_I_ was afraid Elphaba had been arrested!" His tone was so sharp that Elphaba looked up, startled, and his hand dropped from her back. "And Nessarose -"

Elphaba's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. "What about Nessarose?"

Fiyero looked down at her apologetically, visibly softening at the sound of her roughened voice. It was clear to Glinda that he had meant to make _her_ feel guilty, not to alarm Elphaba. "I - well, I heard she fainted when she heard the news that they were looking for you." Elphaba dropped her head into her hands, and Fiyero gingerly patted her back. "She's fine now though; Madame Greyling has been checking on her."

"Madame -" Glinda lifted one eyebrow in an unconscious imitation of Elphaba. "New headmistress?"

"Yes - anyway, that was the last we heard from anyone."

"There haven't been any messages from the Emerald City since then? Nothing to say that Elphaba isn't wanted anymore?"

"No - isn't she?"

Glinda leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and began to pour out the entire story. She sanitized portions of it, saying only that she had convinced Elphaba to reconsider running away and that the Wizard had accepted her change of heart. She felt no need to mention whispered discussions of treason to Fiyero, or to share the true extent of her fear for Elphaba when the guards had taken her away.

When she opened her eyes, Fiyero was looking at Elphaba with something like awe. "You - I mean, I've seen you cast a spell that affected a whole roomful of people, but . . . even the monkeys you didn't know were there? The ones you couldn't see?"

Glinda gestured wildly for him to shut up about the monkeys. "That's not the important part, Fiyero. The important thing is Elphaba's not in trouble anymore - in fact we're both waiting for instructions from the Wizard right now."

"Well . . ." He had begun absently stroking Elphaba's back, running his fingers through the ends of her hair. Elphaba finally seemed to have relaxed slightly, although she hadn't raised her head. "She can't go back to class, not until word comes from the palace. Someone would try to arrest her, or worse."

Glinda kicked the rung of her chair vindictively. "I'm beginning to think it's just like Morrible - to get the news out right away that Elphie's a dangerous fugitive, but conveniently forget to tell the rest of Oz when she isn't one anymore."

"You have to go back to class right away, though, Glinda," Fiyero said. "You have to be there to spread the word that you were with her the whole time and it was all a big misunderstanding."

"It wasn't exactly a misunderstanding," Glinda said, "but you're right." She crossed to the bed and sat down on Elphaba's other side. "It'll be all right, Elphie, you'll see. I'm sure we'll have word from the Wizard soon." She covered Fiyero's hand on Elphaba's hair with her own. "Would you like me to go and check on Nessa?"

"No." Elphaba raised her head and scrubbed her hands over her face. "No, I'll go. I'll have to face her sometime."

"But - if you run into any of the other girls, in the hall -"

Elphaba had reached the door; she turned around with her hand on the knob. "I'm a mad, dangerous witch, remember? Even if I do run into anyone between our floor and Nessa's, what do you think they'll do?" She sighed. "Anyway I'll have to talk to the new headmistress. Let's hope Morrible at least sent some word to her." And with that, she disappeared into the corridor and shut the door behind her.

Glinda closed her eyes and leaned back onto the bed, careless of Fiyero sitting beside her. "I'm so worried about her," she confessed to the ceiling. When she felt the bed shift as Fiyero stood up, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was staring back at her with an expression she couldn't read. "What?"

There was a long pause before he spoke, in a low and intense tone. "What didn't you tell me?"

She sat up again, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you left out what the Wizard and Morrible promised you. Whatever you're going to have to do for them, it was bad enough that Elphaba tried to run away. So why are you willing to do it, and what do you get out of persuading her to stay?"

Glinda felt the blood drain from her face at his angry words and the accusation she could read in his eyes. For a moment she couldn't speak; she covered her hand with her mouth and prayed that she wouldn't cry. "What - what are you talking about? Why are you so angry with me all of a sudden?"

"I'm reading between the lines, Glinda!" He leaned toward her, and instinctively she leaned back away from him. "Only one of you had a warrant out for her arrest, and coincidentally it's the one who had the invitation to meet with the Wizard in the first place, the one who has all the power! So Elphaba took you with her and somehow you ended up unscathed and being offered a position beside her, and I just want to know _how_, because someone has to protect her if you aren't going to!"

She seized on his last, strangest accusation first. "Why - what would make you think I could protect Elphaba? I _couldn't_ protect her, even though I was brave enough to try . . ." She lost her battle; tears welled up in her eyes. "Do you know what I left out? It wasn't easy, it was horrible, with guards chasing after us and yes, I _know_ they only offered me a position because I came there with Elphaba and because once I was in that throne room, I knew too much so they had to appease me with something! And I convinced Elphaba to stay because I was afraid, too afraid to face it without her."

Sobs choked her as she tried to explain, getting to her feet and holding out her hands imploringly. Fiyero no longer looked angry, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking now - she was only desperate for him not to hate her, or to leave her. "And when she stayed with me, even though it was of her own accord, they came for her, the guards came for her, because Morrible had already told the whole city she was dangerous. And they came for her with bayonets and spears and they took her away from me, and she was in with the Wizard all alone and I don't know what he told her, because she wouldn't say!" She took a deep, heaving breath. "And they hurt her, I know they did, she's got marks all over her from those awful bayonets . . ."

Fiyero sat down on the bed again, looking stunned by her outburst. "Bayonets? For a schoolgirl who did one spell? These are the people you want to work for?"

Glinda closed her eyes and sank down on the bed beside him. "I'm trying to tell you. I don't have a choice, neither of us does. Once we were in that palace, our only choice was to agree or to run. And I made Elphaba stay." Suddenly angry, she grabbed his chin and forced him to look her in the eye. "I kept her as safe as I could, _I_ did, and I got her back here to us! So don't try to tell me that I'm enjoying this, or that I wanted it to be this way, because -" Her determination broke and she released him, looking down into her lap. "Because I love her, and I was so afraid for her."

She heard his exhalation beside her, and then his strong arms wrapped her tightly in his embrace and held her against his chest. "I'm sorry," he said against her hair. "I shouldn't have yelled at you, I'm sorry. I saw her, and she looked so - awful, and I've been so worried about both of you . . . there's no excuse." One of his hands came up to cradle the back of her head, and he pressed a hard kiss to her temple. "I'm glad you're back safe."

Glinda began to feel very afraid that his supportive embrace, the sensation of being taken care of, would break through her last reserves of strength. She buried her face in his neck and breathed carefully, trying to control the last sobs that threatened to wrack her body. "I like that you care so much about her," she murmured into his shirt collar.

His response rumbled against her ear. "I love that you love her."

Taking one last deep breath, Glinda pulled back enough to lift her face to his. He looked at her for a long moment, piercing eyes examining her face, and then he bent and pressed his lips to hers. When they separated, he asked, "Should you go and look for Elphaba?"

She stroked the side of his face with one hand, focusing on his lips rather than his eyes. "In a minute I will."

Fiyero nodded and kissed her again, this time more deeply. His hands moved to support her shoulders and the small of her back, and he leaned forward to lower her onto the bed. After a moment's resistance, she let him.


	4. Chapter 3

**Elphaba**

In a way her newfound notoriety was helpful; it forced her to knock on Nessa's door and enter immediately before she was seen, rather than lingering in the hallway trying to delay the inevitable. Nessa was alone in the room - a small bedroom suite set off from the headmistress's rooms by a private hallway - with her chair turned away from the door. Without even turning to look, she said, "Hello, Elphaba."

Elphaba leaned back against the closed door instead of going around to face her sister. "Hello," she said softly. When Nessa didn't reply for a long while, she added, "Nessa, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Nessa asked calmly, her back still resolutely turned. "For staying away longer than you were supposed to? For . . . whatever you did that made the Wizard drag your name, and mine, through the mud? I'm not even going to ask what it was - they told us something ridiculous about flying monkeys, but I can imagine - I don't _have_ to imagine, I know what you can do when you don't get your way."

"Nessa, that's not fair."

"What's not _fair_ is that you didn't even bother to write to me yourself. You couldn't even manage that, Galinda had to be the one to think of me?"

"I - I did think of you. I was thinking of you." Elphaba ran a hand distractedly over her hair. "But as for writing - no, Nessie, I couldn't. I just - couldn't."

"So what are you doing here?" Nessa asked. "Aren't you meant to be on the run somewhere?"

"Glinda didn't explain very well -"

"Oh, that's right, it's _Glinda_ now. You really are a strange influence on people, Elphaba. I would have hoped she'd be more of an influence on you."

Elphaba took a deep breath, ignoring that remark. "I'm not - on the run. At all. It's all right with the Wizard, but no one here knows yet. We're . . . that is, Glinda and I are going to join him after school. It's all settled." Her own voice was a curiosity to her; its roughness was beginning to fade but it sounded artificial, empty, toneless.

Nessa let a long silence elapse before she said, "I've spoken to Madame Greyling. She knows you're coming back today - she said she had some news from the palace that explained what was to be done with you in the future."

"Oh." Elphaba hoped that rather ominous phrasing belonged to Nessa and not to the headmistress or the missive from the Wizard. "Thank you."

"Well, someone had to be responsible for you. Although you can tell Ga- _Glinda_ that Fiyero's been a great help, really."

Elphaba's fingers tightened, clenching at a bit of her skirt, at the ringing irony in Nessa's voice. "Fiyero?"

"Didn't Glinda tell you that she was writing him, too? He told me. And he has been spectacular, especially the other day when someone made a rude remark about you and - Glinda, and Fiyero nearly knocked him unconscious."

"What?" Elphaba gasped. "Are - are you joking?"

Nessa finally wheeled her chair in a circle to face her sister. "Do I look like I think this is funny, Elphaba?"

"But - you have to be - is this like when you told me the lake had frozen under the snow, just to watch me fall through?"

"I'm not ten years old anymore, and I'm not joking," Nessa said, giving her a withering look.

Abandoning the support of the bedroom door, Elphaba crossed the room and sank onto her sister's bed. "Fiyero hit someone?" It was impossible to imagine - mostly because she couldn't quite imagine him caring enough about anything. Violent outbursts on someone else's behalf were more her style, not his.

"I don't know his name - a red-faced Gilliken boy from our history class. He was too stunned to hit back and, luckily for Fiyero, too embarrassed to report it."

"I -" Her mind was too busy to allow her to speak. Fiyero, who had sat upstairs trying to comfort her and calmly helping Glinda to plan her return to class? Fiyero whose life was - or had been - centered around being liked by everyone and not causing trouble unless it might be fun? "I have to go, I have to -"

"Elphaba!" Nessa said firmly to detain her, but it was unnecessary. A knock on the door silenced them both, and Miss Greyling, the literature instructor, entered without waiting for a reply.

"Oh," she said on seeing the sisters together, Elphaba poised to flee. "Miss Elphaba, wonderful. I have something for you."

"I - what?"

Miss Greyling - Madame Greyling now, Elphaba supposed - pulled a familiar-looking envelope from one of her pockets. "This came for you and Miss _Glinda_ from the Wizard himself. Madame Morrible has written to me and explained the entire situation, dear, so don't worry. Tomorrow I will make a public announcement recanting everything that was said about your journey to the Emerald City, and Madame Morrible has assured me that the same will be done in town. You will be perfectly safe here."

Elphaba took the envelope with trembling hands. "Thank you." She turned hastily to Nessa, using Madame Greyling's presence to escape their conversation. "I have to go now, Nessa, I'll see you later!" She fled the room and ducked as quickly as she could into the stairwell, racing up the two flights to her floor and darting across the hall into her room.

"Is everything all right, Elphie?" Glinda was alone in the room, and her tone was tinged with guilt. "I was just about to go and look for you."

"Fiyero left?"

"Just now."

As she spoke, Elphaba noticed that her roommate's face was very pink, and rapidly growing pinker. Her hair was disheveled, and her shoes had been dropped carelessly at the end of the bed. For one moment Elphaba completely forgot about her conversation with Nessa and about the envelope she carried; her stomach dropped and she exclaimed, "You didn't!"

Glinda's eyes widened and she clapped a hand to her chest in horror. "No, of course I didn't! Honestly, Elphie, what do you take me for?"

Elphaba shrugged. "The girl whose boyfriend just ran out of here and left her looking like _that_?" Glinda's face reddened to a degree Elphaba would have thought impossible, but before she could speak, Elphaba frowned in confusion. "Wait - left how? I would have passed him in the stairwell." A sudden, terrible thought occurred to her. "He isn't hiding in here, is he?"

Glinda gestured vaguely. "Out the window. Down the tree."

This did nothing to alleviate Elphaba's confusion. "Why?"

"I guess it seemed like the thing to do?"

"He really has lost his mind." Elphaba sat down on the bed next to Glinda. "Nessa said he hit someone the other day - some boy we don't know who made a comment about us."

"_What_?"

"I know." Her gaze fell to her lap, and she caught sight of the cream-and-green envelope clutched in her hands. "Oh. The Wizard sent this to Madame Greyling for us." She held it out for Glinda to take.

"You should open it," Glinda demurred as she tried to tidy her hair.

Elphaba slid one finger under the seal, then stopped and held it out again. "No, you read it, please? And just tell me if it's good or bad?"

Glinda hesitated, then nodded. "All right." As she leaned over to take the letter, she also kissed Elphaba quickly on the cheek. "Don't worry, it'll be fine."

"Just read it, please?"

Glinda carefully broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out a small card that couldn't have said very much. Her eyes scanned it quickly, and then she said, "We're to be trained, by them, little by little until we finish school."

"Trained in what?" Elphaba interrupted.

"Politics and government, sorcery and spellcrafting," Glinda recited in a way that made it clear she was quoting verbatim. "The direction of magical skill toward political ends."

"Wonderful," Elphaba muttered. "What else?"

Glinda raised an eyebrow at her over the card. "I think the rest speaks for itself - learning to follow orders, stay quiet, be good girls?"

"I meant, what else does the letter say?" Elphaba's tone was abrasive, but inwardly she was rather impressed with Glinda. _If only she'd think that hard about her political science classes . . ._

"Oh. Well, we're going to be called to the Emerald City periodically for short visits, two or three days, for training sessions. About three times a year until we graduate - that isn't so bad - and then 'of course' after graduation they'll expect us on a permanent basis."

"You keep saying 'they.'"

Glinda held up the card. "It's signed by the Wizard and Madame Morrible. I guess she's the 'sorcery and spellcrafting' part."

"May I?" Elphaba took the card and scanned it, but Glinda hadn't missed anything important. "So that's that."

"That's that." Glinda patted her hand. "See, it could have been so much worse. Just little bits of training for the next two and a half years, that's not so horrible."

Elphaba looked straight into Glinda's eyes. "You don't really feel that optimistic about it."

Glinda held her ground for as long as she could, but eventually she faltered. "No, I'm terrified," she confessed, still held in Elphaba's gaze.

Elphaba turned her hand over so that she could hold Glinda's, which was still laying on top of hers. "You can tell me that. I hate this, but I'm not going to collapse because you admit it's possible something might go bad."

Glinda nodded, and Elphaba noticed for the first time that her eyes were as red as her face had been a moment ago. She lifted a hand and brushed her fingers gently over what appeared to be drying tears. "Have you been crying?"

Glinda laughed and shook her head. "No. I was just . . . er . . ."

"So - yes?"

"Yes."

Elphaba dropped her hand to Glinda's arm and squeezed it. "What happened? Did Fiyero do something?"

"N- no . . ."

"Is that a no, yes he did?"

This time Glinda's soft laugh was real, and she reached over and patted Elphaba's knee. "We had an argument, that's all. Then we made up. Nothing to worry about." In response to Elphaba's concerned expression she added, "I'm actually relieved that he cares enough to argue with me. It's the most energy I've had out of him in weeks." She blushed all over again and ducked her head. "Well, you know what I meant."

"So you're all right?"

Glinda impulsively hugged Elphaba, so tightly that Elphaba could barely manage to embrace her in return. "Yes, I'm all right," she said.

**Fiyero**

He missed the announcement - if he'd known in advance that the subject of the all-student meeting would be Elphaba's innocence, he would have attended - but he didn't miss the flurry of whispers and pointed throat-clearing that accompanied Glinda's return to class that day. She sat in her usual place in history, across the room from him, but she flashed him a quick smile as she settled onto her bench.

He glanced to the front of the room, but the professor was writing on the blackboard and not ready to begin his lecture. "Elphaba?" he mouthed after catching Glinda's eye again.

She nodded and mouthed, "Fine," then wrote something in large letters on her notepaper and held it up: _Tomorrow_.

So Elphaba would be back in class tomorrow. He hadn't seen her since she had left her and Glinda's room to speak with her sister, and he hadn't seen Nessa - or, for that matter, Glinda - either. None of which meant that he hadn't been thinking about them - well, not so much Nessa, but the other two.

The witches. He felt that the thought should be amusing, but in fact it sent a cold shudder through his body to picture the Elphaba and Glinda he knew as not sorceresses, but _witches_. Watching Glinda from across the classroom, in her neat school uniform, casting coy glances at him from beneath her eyelashes, it just didn't seem right. And Elphaba . . .

Thinking of her brought to mind a recent memory, a guilty pleasure so compelling that he had to breathe deeply to steady himself. That night in their room, when compassion and warmth and real affection had driven him to kiss Glinda again and again, to press her into the bed and run his hands over her skin, he had been simultaneously unable - even kissing Glinda with his eyes wide open - to forget the feeling of Elphaba against his side, her back under his hands, her hair tangled in his fingers.

Once he had returned to his own room, he had rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to get them both out of his mind, to erase the frustration and released worry and, just, _confusion_; but that was not to be. He had frozen, there on the end of his bed with his hands over his face, arrested by the mingling scents he could detect on them and on him, on his clothes. Glinda and Elphaba, together. Just the memory of that discovery sent the blood rushing to his head. He had to practically run from the room when class was over; he didn't think he could face Glinda just now.

The next day as he sat in his accustomed place in literature class, he knew what was happening when the stunned hush fell over the assembled students who were waiting for their lecture to begin. He knew as soon as he heard footsteps echoing from behind him in the unnatural silence, and he didn't have to look at the color of her skin to recognize the person who dropped quietly into the empty place beside him. He knew the line of her skirt, the scent of her hair; he felt as if he knew the very pattern of her breathing. He wanted to take her hand, to reassure her, but was too afraid to touch her. So he tilted his head down in an attempt to catch her eye and said simply, "You're back."

Elphaba nodded without looking at him. "I'm back."


	5. Chapter 4

**Glinda**

She couldn't believe she'd never thought to ask, although to be fair, she did have some excuse for forgetting a detail like that in the midst of all that had happened. But it never occurred to her even to wonder, until the afternoon four days after their return when she entered their room too quickly, too quietly, and she caught Elphaba slamming something and shoving it under her pillow.

Sort of. Most of the object was still sticking out, and Glinda's eyes completely skipped over the tense expression on Elphaba's face in favor of examining the visible corner of the . . . book . . . the really, really old book . . .

"Oh sweet Oz," she gasped, pressing her hand to her mouth and kicking the door of their room shut with one heel. "Is that . . . ?"

Elphaba glanced down, realized the book was still visible, and shrugged in guilty acknowledgement.

"You _stole_ it?"

"Well . . ." Elphaba pulled the book out from under her pillow and placed it in her lap, fingers smoothing over the old and battered leather binding. "I didn't exactly steal it. I mean, they knew I had it and they didn't ask for it back, did they?"

"But still . . ."

"And anyway, I'm sure they'd have come after it by now if they didn't want me to have it. They know where we live." _That_ brought all sorts of unpleasant images to Glinda's mind, and she must have paled because Elphaba shook her head and said, "I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not as if I couldn't possibly have had an honest reason for taking it, right? I do need to learn how to read the rest of it."

Glinda shrugged out of her coat, laid it across her bed, and went to sit next to Elphaba on the other bed. "So you can't read it all?" she asked curiously. Her fingers itched to touch the book on her roommate's lap, and she tucked her hands under her thighs to restrain them.

"Some of it I can," Elphaba said, opening the book to a random page. "Some of it becomes clear after a minute if I concentrate. And then some of it I can't get at all. I've been trying to figure out what makes some spells harder than others, and how I can teach myself to read them all." She looked up at Glinda and smiled. "Go ahead."

Eyes widening in a silent confirmation that she had permission, Glinda freed one of her hands and ran a finger reverently over the open page. Her fingertip tingled and she drew it away quickly. "It feels like . . . I can't describe it."

"I know," Elphaba said quietly. "Here, I want to show you something."

"What?" Glinda held very still and tried to get used to the burning sensation on her legs as Elphaba carefully passed the book onto her lap.

"I think it may be easier to read a spell after you've heard it spoken once. It says something like that in . . . well, sort of like an introduction, I guess." She leaned over Glinda to turn the pages. "Here - can you read that?"

Glinda studied the markings on the page Elphaba had indicated. "No - wait!" She blinked a few times to be sure, but without changing their appearance at all, the markings had somehow begun to look like something she recognized . . . "Hold on, it's turning into proper letters, I think." Soundlessly she mouthed the nonsense words until they began to seem familiar. "This is the levitation spell, isn't it? I can't tell what the words _mean_, but I can see them - I mean I could pronounce them if I had to."

"That's what most of it is like for me, too." Elphaba shifted closer on the bed so that her shoulder pressed against Glinda's. "Some of it makes sense - I mean, the words aren't _right_ but I know what they mean. It's as if - as if you said something completely nonsensical, not real words at all, but I automatically knew you meant 'let's go to dinner.' And then some of it is like you said - I can read the words, but they don't mean anything."

Glinda frowned. "Then how can you know what the spell will do?"

"You can't, I guess." Elphaba patted Glinda's hand, the one that was still pointing at the letters on the page. "I think I've learned what happens when you perform a spell without knowing _exactly_ what it's intended to do."

Thinking of the monkeys' wings made Glinda shudder. "Me too."

"But," Elphaba added with a note of false cheer, "some of them do have illustrations, so that's helpful." She flipped through the pages at random until she found one with a drawing near the title of the spell. "See?"

Glinda bent close until she could make out the picture - it was a man with something attached to his front . . . or rather . . . "_Ew_, Elphaba. Is that a man impaled on a tree limb?"

As Glinda looked away in disgust, Elphaba leaned in closer. "No," she said after a minute.

"Oh, good."

"I think it's a lamp-post, actually." She nudged Glinda's fingers out of the way and hastily turned the page. "I don't think I'll be trying that spell."

"I should think not." Glinda shifted backward on the bed and tucked her feet up under her. "On the other hand, maybe it's a spell for healing someone who's been impaled on a lamp-post."

Elphaba laughed a little with her. "But imagine what you'd have to do to find out."

"So you think I can read the levitation spell because I've already heard you say it out loud?"

"That's my guess." Elphaba looked around the room for a moment, then went and fetched a quill off her desk and laid it purposefully on the nightstand beside Glinda. Leaning over the book as she resumed her seat, she flipped back to the page containing the spell Glinda had recognized. "Go ahead, try it."

Glinda looked up at her friend, uncertain whether she felt more excited or afraid. "Really?"

"Just make sure you concentrate on the quill and not me."

"Well - all right." She took a deep breath, then gripped onto Elphaba's hand. With her free hand she waved tentatively at the quill and began, haltingly, to read out the words of the spell.

For a long tense moment they sat staring at the quill, which remained motionless on the nightstand. Then, just as Glinda was about to give up and hand the Grimmerie back to Elphaba - the quill rose. Slowly, and only a few inches into the air, but it rose.

Glinda covered her mouth with both hands and said, thus muffled, "Oh, my."

Elphaba threw both arms around her neck, looking really pleased for the first time in days. "You did it!" she said in a whisper more intense than any scream could have been.

"I did." Glinda lowered her hands slowly and laid them over Elphaba's on her own shoulder. "I've never done an old spell before - with a chant and without a wand."

"And it worked the first time!"

"It did!" Excitement slowly seeping in through the shock, Glinda turned and hugged Elphaba tightly. "I can't believe it worked for me!"

"Maybe you're better without a wand," Elphaba said, pulling back to smile at her.

"So you think you can teach me to read it?"

Elphaba's face tensed for the briefest second, but she quickly relaxed into a smile again. "I hope so," she said.

**Elphaba**

Now that Nessa had finally stopped harping on Elphaba's behavior in the Emerald City, and her _impossible_ failure to tell her sister everything that had happened, and the shame she had brought on their entire family, walking her to and from class had become an exercise in daydreaming for Elphaba. True, her sister was still talking, but it was generally a recitation of everything Boq had said or not said to her that day, every time she had seen him, every time he had acknowledged or ignored her. Elphaba really did feel for her sister - Boq was essentially ignoring her now, and there didn't seem to be a good reason why he had suddenly stopped his attention to Nessa - but she simply couldn't listen to every little interaction, every slight, every complaint Nessa had against him.

Instead she let her mind wander, pondering over the last spell she had managed to read from the Grimmerie, puzzling over the meaningless words of the last one she hadn't managed, letting Nessa's voice and the quiet squeaking of her chair's wheels mix with the cool wind and the honking of geese and the chattering of the other students into a swirl of indistinguishable sounds. It was always an annoyance when they came so close to a particular group that their words broke loudly into her thoughts and interrupted her daydreaming.

Today it happened as they passed a gazebo that sat between the male and female dormitories - a favorite place for lovers because ivy grew so thickly among its planks and lattices that it was almost impossible to see inside from most angles.

The students inside today did not appear to be lovers, however - there were too many of them, and all female. ". . . get her comeuppance, all right," one of them was saying in piercing tones as Elphaba and Nessa came closer on the path.

"Well, she is so very fond of having everyone in love with her," another anonymous voice responded with an obnoxious giggle. Elphaba rolled her eyes. The capacity of the females at Shiz to be cruel to one another continued to astound her - their behavior toward _her_ she understood, but they were often equally fierce with each other for apparently no particular reason.

"She'll probably enjoy the attention." A third voice, deeper but still female.

"You're sure they got your message?" the second voice asked. One of Nessa's wheels caught in a rut and Elphaba had to stop and rock her sister back and forth to free it. Nessa was uncharacteristically silent and uncomplaining during this process, but then she always did have to listen to gossip - always afraid it might be about her.

"I'm sure - my messenger said they looked like all their birthdays had come early." This statement was greeted with raucously unladylike laughter.

"What'd you tell _her_?"

The first girl sounded eminently pleased with herself. "That her darling prince charming wanted to meet her in the history classroom."

Nessa's wheel came free at last, and Elphaba pushed her hastily away from the gazebo. If they were plotting some unfortunate prank against one of the other girls in her class - like the time someone had copied out Pfannee's roommate's diary and hung the pages on the cafeteria noticeboard - she would rather not know about it. Best to stay as far away from those quarrels as she possibly could.

When Elphaba finally made it to her room alone, having left Nessa to rest up before dinner in her own suite, she collapsed directly into an exhausted heap on her bed. Glinda's excitement at being able to perform even one spell from the Grimmerie had been contagious and they had stayed up late into the night attempting to read more of them. The only glitch in Elphaba's plan had been the fact that in order to teach Glinda to read the spells, Elphaba had to read them out loud - which carried far too strong a danger that she might accidentally _perform_ the spell. Still, a few of them had been obviously innocuous enough to try. She grinned - from her vantage point on the bed she could see the quill still lying on the desk. It was now pink, the result of Glinda's very first successful color change spell.

After the quill she had wanted to try it on Elphaba, but Elphaba had energetically refused. Somehow she thought ending up bright pink would be much worse than green.

Speaking of which, there was a sheet of paper lying under the quill that hadn't been there before. Elphaba hauled herself reluctantly to her feet and went over to retrieve it.

"Don't wait for me - see you at dinner," read Glinda's swirling handwriting. "Fiyero wanted to talk - be in the history building if you desperately need me!"

Elphaba smiled to herself as she replaced the note on the desk. Did Glinda think she would suddenly have such an urgent need for fashion advice that she would burst in on them in the -

_Oh, no._ The sinking feeling in her stomach grew stronger as she reread the note. _Oh, no no no no no._

She is so very fond of having everyone in love with her.

Her darling prince charming wanted to meet her in the history classroom.

Oh, no.

Without stopping to put her coat back on, Elphaba ran as fast as she could. _Most_ of these quarrels she would stay well out of, but Glinda was a different case entirely.

All the windows in the history building were already dark, with classes concluded for the day, except for a light in a professor's office high on the top floor. Elphaba hesitated with her hand on the doorknob, afraid of what she was likely to stumble onto inside. If it should be too late to warn Glinda or to undo the damage - if those girls had plotted to embarrass her in some way - would Glinda rather that Elphaba _not_ be there to witness it? On the other hand . . .

A shrill cry of fear pierced the air and was quickly cut off. That decided it; Elphaba pushed the door open and ran into the darkened hallway.

There was no more noise, but she didn't feel any better. It had certainly been Glinda who screamed, and it had not been a mild shriek of embarrassment, or of surprise. The girls in the gazebo had specifically said the history classroom, so Elphaba counted the rooms in the dark and paused outside the first-year history room, listening with her ear against the door. A voice - a male voice - was saying something, too low for her to make out the words. There was a scuffling sound, the sound of something being knocked over. Elphaba turned the knob and found the door locked.

Her stomach now clenched in fear, she stepped back and raised a shaking hand over the doorknob. She hadn't memorized a spell for this, but . . . _Glinda. Screaming. In danger. Locked in the dark with . . . _Power flowed through her body in a painful jolt and the door flew open, banging against the wall inside the classroom.

Elphaba gave a little strangled cry at the scene that greeted her eyes. Two large and well-built boys, only one of whom she recognized from her classes, had Glinda by the elbows and were holding her pinned against the wall. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders and tears shone on her face. The third boy had just begun to turn around as Elphaba barrelled into the room.

Pure rage filled her ears and her throat to the extent that she had no idea what she was screaming - the sound of her own voice drowned out whatever the boys might have been shouting as she ran toward them - and then she was abruptly halted, winded, her tirade cut off. The third boy, the one not occupied with holding Glinda, had turned and backhanded her sharply across the face. "Shut up!" he roared as she reeled backward, hand flying to her mouth, hair falling forward to veil her face. Glinda's horrified cry of her name sounded very far away.

The other two boys, however, had frozen in fear. One of them - the one Elphaba didn't know - pointed and gasped, "You idiot - she - the _witch_, the one they told us about!"

The boy who had struck Elphaba grabbed her by shoulder and pulled her up roughly to look into her face. "Greyling said she's not really a witch, didn't she?"

"Greyling said she wasn't a criminal - she never said she wasn't a witch!" Neither he nor his partner, however, made any move to release Glinda.

The third boy laughed and brought his hand up to hold Elphaba's chin. "Not that dangerous, are you?" he chuckled. "Just ugly. Not that I necessarily mind."

"Elphie," Glinda pleaded - for what Elphaba wasn't sure, but it was enough. The power that had drained her energy moments ago surged through her again - she was barely able to hope that it didn't touch Glinda as she felt her anger and fear pour through her fingers.

When it was over, all three boys were lying motionless on the floor - awake, but apparently unable to move. Glinda - mercifully unscathed by the explosion of Elphaba's power - squeaked softly and hurried to Elphaba's side, stepping over one of the boys on the way.

"What did you - but, and how - how did you know -"

"Your note," Elphaba said, her voice raspy. "On my way home I heard some girls plotting to . . . do something to someone in the history classroom. When I saw your note . . . I thought, I expected it was something to embarrass you, not something like - this."

"Oh, Elphie." Glinda brushed her fingers lightly over Elphaba's mouth and then held them up, stained with blood. "Are you all right?"

"Are _you_?" Elphaba asked meaningfully. She could taste the blood now; he must have hit her hard.

"Yes," Glinda replied, her eyes nervously surveying the boys on the floor.

"Really?"

Glinda laid her hand on Elphaba's chest, over her heart. She held Elphaba's gaze with her own and repeated, "Yes."

Elphaba kicked the boot of the boy lying closest to them - the one who had struck her. "What did they tell you to do?" she demanded.

It seemed that whatever she had done to them, they were able to speak. "I don't know what you're talking about," the boy replied.

"Those girls," she said through clenched teeth. "They told you to do something to her, I know they did."

One of the other boys struggled to lift his head. "They didn't say to do anything to her, I swear. They said she was . . . er . . ."

"They said she was looking for a little fun," the boy nearest to Elphaba spat out. "They said she'd come to us, and she'd pretend to be shy, but we shouldn't pay any attention when she pretended to say no."

"And you believed them." None of the boys spoke, but their expressions were clear enough. They hadn't really believed such a ridiculous story. "It gave you a convenient enough excuse to act like animals, didn't it?"

Glinda's arms slipped around Elphaba's waist, and her head leaned on Elphaba's shoulder with a warm and welcome pressure. "What are we going to do?" she asked quietly.

"We're going to Madame Greyling," Elphaba replied immediately. "I don't know how long they'll be stuck here, but I hope long enough." She took Glinda's hand in hers and led her from the classroom, and back down the darkened corridor, in silence. Once they were back out in the fading late afternoon light she stammered, "I don't know how to - this is because of me. This is happening to you because of what I did . . ."

"Stop." Glinda dug in her heels and tugged on Elphaba's hand until she stopped walking and turned to face her. "We're both in this, remember? And you saved me." She reached up and gently wiped more blood from Elphaba's face with her thumb.

"You're not afraid, or -"

"I was so scared," Glinda replied, holding tight to Elphaba's hand, her lips trembling. "But I don't blame you - and I'm not afraid it'll happen again. We're supposed to be under the Wizard's protection, remember - I think those boys should be more afraid of what's going to happen to _them_."

"And those girls," Elphaba said darkly. "They'd better hope they're expelled and sent away." She squeezed Glinda's hand. "You're doing a good job of acting brave."

"Acting is exactly what it is." Glinda took a deep breath. "Well, let's go talk to Madame while I still can." She started to walk again, then stopped and reached up to run her fingers over Elphaba's hair and down through the tousled ends. "Thank you," she whispered.

Elphaba nodded. "Always."


	6. Chapter 5

**Elphaba**

She returned to their room alone, Madame Greyling having asked to speak with Glinda for a while by herself. Nessa had seen them enter and her eyes had widened slightly to see her sister's bleeding lip and Glinda's rumpled hair and clothing, but she hadn't said a word. Elphaba didn't see her on the way back out to her own room.

She sat for a long while on her bed waiting for Glinda, holding the Grimmerie in her lap and absently stroking its cover. Madame had dispatched an immediate message to the central police installation in town while Elphaba was still there with her - indeed, the pallor of their new Head's face suggested that not only was she shocked by the incident, but she was also afraid of what the Palace's reaction would be if Glinda had been harmed while at Shiz. Madame's fear had proved Glinda correct - they _were_ considered under the protection of the Wizard now, even if protection often seemed a little more like captivity, and presumably Madame Greyling was held responsible for their safety at school.

Elphaba had found that holding the Grimmerie had a calming effect on her, as if it drained her natural power - or not her power itself, but the rage that fueled it - into itself and gave her back a more controlled magical energy instead. It didn't seem to have a similar effect on Glinda, but then Glinda had very little natural magic _or_ rage; perhaps it frightened her in the same way that Elphaba frightened her when she lost control.

When the door opened, only just wide enough for Glinda's body to slip through, Elphaba laid aside the Grimmerie and held out one arm to her roommate. Glinda carefully pressed the door shut behind her and came to sit close with her legs across Elphaba's lap, her face pressed into Elphaba's neck. She didn't cry, but Elphaba held her tightly and leaned them both back against the headboard of her bed. "What did Madame say to you after I left?" she asked quietly.

Glinda shifted so that she could speak without muffling her words in Elphaba's neck. One hand found the ends of Elphaba's long hair hanging over her shoulder and twisted the dark strands around her fingers. "She wanted to ask whether they had . . . well, she didn't really believe that you had got to me in time, I guess. She thought I had lied to you because I didn't want you to know."

"Oh." Elphaba held her breath. "What did you tell her?"

"The truth." Using her hand on Elphaba's hip as leverage, she pushed herself up to look Elphaba in the eye. "You know I wasn't lying to you, right?"

"I know," Elphaba said, but she knew she had said it too quickly. Glinda frowned at her before laying her head back down.

"I would have told you," she said.

"I believe you." Elphaba tightened her hold on Glinda. "Did she say anything else?"

"Just again that they'd find out who the girls were who set the whole thing up. She really wasn't angry that you didn't recognize them."

"In a way I'm glad I didn't," Elphaba remarked.

"Why?"

"I may not love your friends, but I'd know their voices anywhere. If I didn't recognize these girls, it means they weren't close friends of yours."

"Oh." Glinda traced a fingertip thoughtfully over the waist of Elphaba's skirt. "You're right, that is better."

"Are you really going to be all right?"

Glinda lifted herself up and leaned back against the headboard beside Elphaba, their shoulders touching. "Yes," she said confidently. "I could make myself crazy thinking about what would have happened if I hadn't left you a note, if you hadn't been suspicious, if you had, I don't know, run slower, but . . . well, I wasn't hurt, and I can't go on being afraid forever. Although we do have permission to miss class tomorrow, I forgot to tell you that."

"All right. I'll stay here with you if you want."

Glinda poked her in the side, laughing softly. "Skipping class again after we already missed so much? You really do love me."

Elphaba only smiled awkwardly and asked, "Do you want to go and wash your face?"

"I suppose I should." She extricated herself from Elphaba's lap and stood to leave, then impulsively threw her arms around Elphaba again and said, "Thank you for all of this. I can't think what this would all be like without you as my roommate."

"Without me as your roommate, your life would be very peaceful," Elphaba pointed out.

"But I'd miss you anyway," Glinda said, not seeming to mind the absence of logic.

After Glinda had gone into their bathroom and closed the door behind her, Elphaba leaned back and closed her eyes, listening to the quiet sounds of water splashing. She didn't know how long she had been resting that way when her solitude was interrupted by a rapping sound from across the room.

She sat up and looked reflexively at the closed door, but the sound hadn't come from there. Her eyes scanned the rest of the room, and she gave a tiny, hastily smothered shriek of alarm when she saw a face at the window. It was Fiyero. Outside their third-floor window, knocking impatiently on the glass.

"Are you insane?" she hissed, opening the window just wide enough to speak to him. He was perched precariously on the tree branch that came closest to the window, clinging to the sill with his fingers.

"I had to come and -" His eyes widened as he looked at her properly. "Oh - oh, _Elphaba_."

"What?" she asked more harshly than she had intended.

"Your face," he choked. "Can I come in, please?"

"Someone will see you!"

"They're more likely to see me if I stay out here. Please?"

Sighing, she glanced over at the bathroom door. It was still closed. "All right. Watch out." She opened the window as carefully as she could, then gripped the hand he extended to help him pull himself into the room. "Now what do you think you're doing climbing in our window?"

"Where's Glinda?"

She nodded toward the bathroom. "Washing up. Fiyero . . ."

He shushed her, taking her hand and pulling her closer to him. She breathed in sharply, trying to control or at least ignore the heat that spread through her body when he touched her, when his eyes examined her face with a striking intensity. "Sweet Oz, Elphaba . . ." he muttered, raising his hand and just brushing the tender place at the side of her mouth. She flinched away, both because it hurt and because of the inappropriate feelings his touch elicited, but his other hand held tight to hers and wouldn't let her back away. "I had to come - the whole campus is talking, I had to see you and make sure -"

"Oh, no." She wrenched her hand from his grip and backed off to a safe distance. "Does everyone know already? I had hoped it wouldn't get out."

The compassion in his expression made her rather uncomfortable. "Everyone knows some things. They know two upper-year students and a first year were arrested and taken into town by a whole squadron of police and guards. They know they had to be carried out because apparently they couldn't move on their own. And . . . well, they know what crime they were charged with."

Elphaba frowned in confusion. "So how did you know to come here?"

"Well, people may not _know_ the details, but they've been making some pretty good guesses. A few of the girls said you and Glinda had been locked up in Madame Greyling's rooms all afternoon and - you know there's only one student we know of who could have knocked three people flat like that without touching them." He came closer and reached for her hand again, but Elphaba barely noticed. _Poor Glinda._ She really had been hoping that somehow the whole thing could have been kept a secret - but she had underestimated the Shiz gossip chains and how quickly any news seemed to spread. Especially scandalous news, and there could be little as scandalous as the most beautiful and popular girl in school being attacked by three other students . . .

"Is that all they're saying?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, but he spoke too slowly, and the look on his face said volumes.

She shook her head. "Liar. We're going to hear it anyway, you know."

His hands slid up to clasp her arms, and she stiffened to keep herself from either melting or running away. "You know what someone always says in a situation like this," he said gently. "That it was - well, you know, the girl's fault. Or that she made it up to get out of trouble. Or -"

"Enough!" she whispered intently. She hadn't imagined it would get quite so bad, so quickly. She jerked her head nervously toward the still-closed bathroom door, from behind which she could still hear reassuring little splashing sounds. "Do you think she needs to hear that?"

His brow furrowed. "Hear . . . Elphaba, you did tell her, didn't you?"

Now she was confused. "Tell her what?"

"I'm sorry, I thought - those girls said specifically that you _and_ Glinda had been in with the Head . . ." He gave her a small, sad smile. "Elphaba, she's your roommate - your friend. Don't you think she could help? I mean, she is going to find out anyway . . . I understand it's hard, but -"

And Elphaba suddenly understood. Without thinking her hands came up to hold onto his arms, mirroring his own position. "Fiyero," she said as gently as she could, "it wasn't me."

"Huh?"

"It wasn't me they tried to attack. It was . . ." She nodded toward the bathroom again. "Her."

He stared down at her, paling. "But - you -"

"I found her," she explained. "One of them hit me when I came to help her."

His mouth opened and closed a few times in silence, before he managed to say, "You said 'tried.'"

"I'm sorry?"

"Tried, you said they 'tried' to attack her."

She nodded in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. "Yes. I got there before they could do anything."

"Are you sure?"

"I swear."

He gasped as if he had been holding his breath, and pulled her into a bruising embrace. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said immediately, releasing her the minute the side of her face came into contact with his chest. "I forgot, did I hurt you?"

He meant her face, she realized. She lifted her own hand to the tender place. "I had almost forgotten about it. Is it very bad?"

"Well, it's bleeding and turning purple." He sank down heavily on the end of her bed. "Oh, Elphaba, I've been picturing the most horrible things."

"Believe me, so have I."

"Elphie, is someone there?"

The voice had come from their bathroom. She called back, "Fiyero's here, Glinda."

"So, is she . . . ?" Fiyero rested his hands on his knees and studied them, letting his question trail off.

"I think she's going to be fine." His position called her attention to the backs of his hands, which she suddenly realized were bruised black and blue, the knuckles cracked and bloodied. "What did you _do_?"

He followed her gaze to his hands and offered her a crooked, guilty smile. "Tree."

"Ah. Fell out?"

"No, punched one."

She winced. "I see."

"The . . . bastards had already been taken away. Sorry."

"Right."

The bathroom door opened slowly, and Glinda peered out. "Fiyero? How did you get in here?" Her face was clean of tears and not nearly as red as it had been, and her hair had been straightened. Elphaba noticed she had also changed her dress.

"He climbed in," she told Glinda. "Apparently the tree is now a ladder."

"Oh," Glinda said, hands nervously smoothing the front of her dress.

"Obviously we'll be locking the window from now on," Elphaba added.

Fiyero got slowly to his feet and walked toward Glinda as if he expected her to run away. He opened his arms without coming too close, and she stepped into them.

"So I guess everyone's heard?" she asked with her head on his chest.

Fiyero looked over his shoulder at Elphaba, and she explained, "Sort of. They don't seem to have figured out that you were there at all, according to Fiyero. Everyone thinks it was me who was attacked."

Glinda lifted her head and looked worriedly at Elphaba. "You should tell them it wasn't."

Elphaba shrugged. "No, let those girls think that what they did didn't even touch you. It's not as if I had much of a reputation to protect."

"Girls?" They had forgotten that Fiyero didn't know the entire story.

The roommates exchanged anxious looks. In the end it was Glinda, with her hands resting on his chest and her voice low and calm, who explained that she had been set up.

For a long time Fiyero couldn't speak. He looked between Glinda and Elphaba with his eyes flashing and red staining the pallor of his face. Finally he said, in a tone that made Elphaba's heart race, "Elphaba. You'll make sure they're taken care of, won't you?"

She looked straight into his eyes and said, "I promise that they will be."

Their intensity had frightened Glinda; she buried her face in Fiyero's shoulder and waited for him to hold her again. He did for a moment, one hand stroking her hair as he murmured something Elphaba couldn't hear. Then, still holding Glinda close with one arm, he extended the other to Elphaba. Unsure of what he meant, she came close enough to rest her hand on Glinda's back just below his arm. Fiyero raised his hand to her face, letting his palm rest gently against the bruised place; then he slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him and to Glinda. His hand slipped through her hair and drew her head down to rest on his unoccupied shoulder, and he held them both until Glinda had stopped shaking and Elphaba, for reasons she fervently hoped he wouldn't guess, had started.

"You'll be all right?" he asked Glinda as Elphaba started to pull away from them.

She nodded, smiling tremulously up at him. "I may have to sleep with Elphaba tonight," she added in a tone that made it clear she was not entirely joking, "but I'm fine."

He bent and kissed her, drawing it out until Glinda blushed and Elphaba began to fidget with the hem of her blouse. When he turned, the look on his face was so open and warm that Elphaba was momentarily afraid he would kiss her, too. Instead he embraced her again, taking no note of her failure to respond, and told Glinda, "I'll leave you in Elphaba's hands, then."

When he had gone, Elphaba latched the window securely behind him.


	7. Chapter 6

**Fiyero**

The Munchkin came running after him as he crossed back to the dormitory - Fiyero would have pretended he didn't notice the other boy calling his name, but he had learned that Boq was both incredibly persistent and also a surprisingly fast runner. He turned and waited for Boq to catch up.

"Have you seen Glinda?" Boq panted as he came close enough not to shout.

"She's in her room," Fiyero replied noncommittally, lifting one hand to gesture toward the girls' dormitory.

"Then -" Boq paused to catch his breath, one hand pressed to his heart. "Then she's all right?"

"She's . . . fine, she's with Elphaba." He couldn't have explained why he equated the two. Suspicion made him narrow his eyes at Boq: "Why shouldn't she be?"

Boq gasped for air. "Well - everyone knows - Elphaba . . ." Still out of breath, he waved his hands around in a vaguely witchy manner. "And - Milla told me - her roommate told her - something bad was going to happen - to Glinda. Figured - Elphaba - trying to - help Glinda . . ." Finally he gave up and sagged against a tree, looking imploringly at Fiyero.

"Wait - Milla's roommate told her something was _going_ to happen to Glinda? Meaning she knew about it in advance?"

Boq nodded, breathing deeply. "Milla thought - hold on." A burst of coughing later and he seemed able to speak. "Milla thought her roommate had planned some kind of prank on Glinda. Something to . . ." He frowned. "'Knock her down a peg,' I think is what she said. But if Elphaba lost her temper like that - I was afraid something really bad must have happened."

"It almost did," Fiyero said grimly. "And what Elphaba did wasn't exactly 'losing her temper.'"

"So you've seen Glin- er, them?"

"Yes - do I know Milla's roommate?"

Boq shook his head. "I don't know - she's in our history class. Her name's Noala."

"Thanks." Ignoring Boq for the moment, Fiyero looked around him until he spotted two girls walking in their direction. "'Scuse me!" he called out. Both girls turned and immediately smiled, blushing prettily at the attention. "Are you girls headed to your dormitory?"

"Yes," one of them replied, her smile broadening. "Want to walk us there?"

"Sorry, no time. Would you mind doing me a favor?" He turned back to Boq, who was still leaning against the tree. "Got something I can write a note on?"

"Anything," the girl replied, leading her friend closer.

Fiyero took the sheet of paper and pencil Boq handed him and scrawled a hasty note. "Take this and give it to -" Not Glinda, she would still be too distraught. "To Elphaba Thropp, on the third floor - you know her?"

The girl raised her eyebrows. "She's hard to miss."

"Never mind that - just give it to her, please?"

The girl held out her hand for the note, and her friend - possibly afraid of seeming rude - said, "We know her room - she and Galinda are just at the other end of the hall from me."

"It's Glinda," Boq muttered from behind Fiyero. As the two girls hastened away, he asked, "You don't think they'll read it?"

"Of course they will," Fiyero replied. "But I don't think they'll understand it. Listen, I have to . . ." He motioned toward his dormitory and took off without waiting for Boq to reply.

The initial rush of accomplishment at discovering - well, all right, being told by Boq - the identity of one of the girls responsible for plotting against Glinda was already fading by the time he reached his room, and the slightly sick, dizzy feeling he'd had in his stomach all afternoon was slowly returning. His roommate, a tall Munchkinlander named Rikk, looked up as he entered and said, "You look terrible. Where've you been?"

He and Rikk didn't associate much - basically the only thing they had in common was being rich enough to merit sharing the most expansive suite in the building - but the boy wasn't bad as a roommate. Fiyero tried to rearrange his expression into one slightly less pained as he replied, "With Glinda."

"Oh?" Rikk set down the book he'd been reading. "It is true her roommate hexed Malin and two other guys?"

"Basically."

"So they did . . ." Rikk seemed unable to find a tactful way of asking what he wanted to know, but his looks and awkward gestures gave Fiyero the basic idea.

"No," he replied. "Not exactly. She, uh . . ."

"Defended herself?"

Fiyero nodded and pointed at his roommate. "Yes. Right."

Rikk whistled through his teeth. "Well, good for her, I say."

Surprised by his roommate's seeming approval of Elphaba, or at least of her actions, Fiyero only nodded again and collapsed onto his bed.

"Hey - are you sure you're all right? You really don't look well."

Fiyero covered his eyes. "I'm . . . fine. I just . . ."

Rikk let a long while elapse before asking, "You just what?"

Fiyero opened his eyes and surveyed his roommate. They weren't particularly good friends, but he was probably better than nothing. And suddenly Fiyero had a desperate need to talk to another male. "I - have you ever liked someone you weren't supposed to?"

"Um . . ." Rikk frowned. "Is this about Glinda?"

"No - I mean - have you ever . . . been attracted to someone without - understanding why, or - someone who's all wrong, someone who . . . probably wouldn't ever think of you that way? You understand?"

Rikk's eyes widened and he leaned back in his chair. "Um - look, Fiyero - I . . . well, I don't want to offend you, but - er -"

Fiyero sat up far enough to throw a pillow at him. "I'm not talking about you, for Ozsakes. I mean a girl."

"Oh," Rikk said with enormous relief. "In that case - yeah, I think I know what you mean."

"Yeah?"

"Although - _are_ there any girls who wouldn't ever think of you that way? Aside from those two Gillikinese girls who're dating each other, they don't count."

Fiyero rolled his eyes. "Trust me, I found one."

"And she's not -"

"Like those two Gillikinese girls? I don't think so - although I guess anything's possible." Hmm - that was something he hadn't considered before, even though he did know how close the two girls were, how devoted Elphaba was to Glinda . . . He lay back on his pillows, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I think it just got even more complicated."

"How is it complicated? You like the girl. She doesn't like you - you say. You have a girl who does like you . . ."

"I know." Fiyero shook his head. "Glinda's - perfect, right?"

"Pretty much."

"And I do . . . like her. A lot." He couldn't explain the rest of the problem without giving away who he was talking about, so he settled for saying, "That's how it's complicated."

"You like this other girl enough that you can't just forget about her, even though you don't think she likes you and you're otherwise happy with Glinda?"

"Exactly."

"Wow. How have I missed this girl?"

Fiyero laughed shortly. "Believe me, you haven't."

"You going to tell me who it is?"

"No."

"All right then."

Fiyero sat up again, feeling fidgety. "She - you know, I could understand if - I mean, we're all sometimes . . . fascinated by what's different, right? By people who're completely different from us?"

"Sure."

"If it were just that, I could understand. Even if I only liked her because she challenged me, or - because getting her to like me would be a challenge, _that_ would make sense. But I'm - _attracted_ to her - really very attracted to her -"

"Physically, you mean."

"Yes! And normally I wouldn't be - I mean, she isn't the kind of girl I would normally be attracted to. Not to mention, normally I can be around a pretty girl - lots of pretty girls, even - and, nothing. No problem. But her - I get distracted just from standing too close to her. It's ridiculous."

"And she's not interested?"

"I think she's warmed up to me a little since we met, but she doesn't have much use for me, no."

Rikk moved from the chair to the end of his bed. "You've got a problem, all right."

"What would you do? If you were me?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

"I'd forget about this other girl." Rikk crossed his arms and frowned. "Attraction is fun, but you've got something good going on with Glinda and you don't want to mess it up for a girl who doesn't even like you."

Fiyero exhaled heavily. "I don't think she likes me," he said more to himself than to Rikk. "Every now and then . . ."

"What?"

"Well - every now and then, I'll - touch her, or something, and I think maybe I see - I think she has some reaction. But . . ." He couldn't explain to Rikk that he was afraid that reaction was simply surprise and discomfort, because Elphaba seemed so unaccustomed to anyone touching her at all. "You're right. Glinda's - she's Glinda."

"She's perfect."

"Yes, she is."

**Elphaba**

She ignored the stares that followed her as she stalked into her literature class, ignored the other students who had been nervously shuffling out of her way since hearing that her magic had the power to knock people unconscious. Fiyero was already sitting in his usual spot, and she noticed with her usual stab of relieved - pleasure? - that he was holding her place with his satchel. He gave her a strange, undecipherable look as she sat down, but she ignored that and leaned close to whisper, "Madame called us in this morning. Noala was expelled, and she turned in one other girl too."

He glanced around them to see if anyone was paying attention (they weren't) and leaned in so that his chin hovered over her shoulder, his hand on the small of her back to hold her where she was. She could feel his hand trembling; from anger, she supposed. "What other girl?" he whispered.

"Her name's Karinna, I don't know her but Glinda does."

"I thought you said there were at least three of them." In his curiosity he had shifted his hand higher on her back to draw her nearer, apparently not even noticing that his fingers had tangled in the ends of her hair.

This close, she could feel the heat radiating off his body and could catch the now-familiar scent of his skin. _Glinda's_, she reminded herself sharply, taking a deep breath before she spoke. "Karinna supposedly planned the whole thing, that's why Noala was willing to give her up. They both say there was no one else but I know they're lying."

"What does Madame say?"

"That maybe I was mistaken about hearing three separate voices."

"Were you?"

She pulled back to look him in the eye. "No."

He looked around hastily again before saying, "So there's still a third."

"Yes."

The professor had begun to rap his pointer against the chalkboard to begin the lecture. Elphaba turned to pay attention, but Fiyero leaned close and hissed in her ear, "How's Glinda?"

"Still staying in our room," Elphaba replied, trying to move her lips as little as possible. "She thinks she'll go to class tomorrow."

"Should I come and visit?"

And climb through their window again, possibly terrifying the life out of poor Glinda? "I don't think so," she whispered. "I think she needs to feel like she can hide if she wants to."

Their professor was already deep into a discussion of Gillikinese sonnet form, but Fiyero brushed his hand gently against hers and whispered, "Does your face still hurt much?"

"A little." Actually it throbbed every time she opened her mouth enough to speak loudly or to eat, but she wasn't going to admit that.

"It looks pretty painful."

Almost forgetting that there was a lecture going on, she gave a brief, derisive laugh. "At least I don't have to worry it'll mar my beauty."

"You're right," he whispered close to her shoulder, "but not for the reason you think."

She turned sharply to look at him and found his face entirely too close for comfort. She shifted away from him on the bench, muttering, "Maybe you should pay attention to the lecture."

"Yeah," he agreed quickly. He shifted slightly away from her as well, clearly uncomfortable. Elphaba listened to a few sentences on the meter of Gillikinese sonnets without hearing anything but Fiyero's soft breathing beside her, and then a hand touched hers to get her attention and he said quietly, "I do love her, you know."

She wasn't sure why he would say that just now, but she certainly didn't have to ask who he was talking about. She nodded, catching his eye for a brief second. "I know," she said. "So do I. And - I appreciate that you want to be there for her right now."

For some reason she didn't understand, this statement seemed to make him momentarily - sad? Worried? Something flickered across his face, but then he patted her hand and turned himself to face the professor, effectively ending their communication.


	8. Chapter 7

**Elphaba**

Elphaba wasn't terribly surprised to enter her room and find Glinda sitting at the desk studying - her roommate had been unusually sedate and introspective in the past weeks, not that Elphaba could blame her, and she had been paying an increased amount of attention to her classwork - but she _was_ surprised by the startled, guilty look on Glinda's face when she saw Elphaba. "Shut the door," she hissed, waving her hand wildly toward the hallway.

Then Elphaba noticed exactly _what_ Glinda was studying. She hastened to slam the door and latch it behind her before any of the numerous girls walking through the hall were able to see into the room.

"Do you mind?" Glinda asked tentatively, her nose wrinkling in chagrin.

"Not at all," Elphaba replied, shrugging off her cloak and letting it fall across Glinda's bed. "But you might want to lock the door next time. I could have been anyone. The Wizard probably knows we have the thing, but if anyone else did - we don't want to run the risk of its being stolen."

"I know, I know," Glinda fretted. "I'm always forgetting to be careful about things like that."

Elphaba rested her hand on the back of Glinda's chair and leaned over to see which spell she was studying. It was one Elphaba didn't recognize, and even a moment of staring didn't allow her to decipher the words. "Are you having any luck?"

"No." Glinda sighed and began flipping through the pages. "I was hoping familiarity would help - like if I sat with it for a while, the magic would . . . seep into me or something."

Elphaba tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile, but Glinda wasn't looking at her anyway. "So it didn't work?"

"Not that I can tell." Glinda stopped flipping once she had found the page with the familiar levitation spell on it. "But I discovered something fun, watch."

Elphaba stepped back a few feet nervously. "All right."

Glinda retrieved her wand, which had been laying on the other end of the desk. "See, if I try to levitate that quill just using my wand . . ." She pointed her wand and said firmly, "Levitate!" Nothing happened. "See? Nothing. _And_, I also tried this . . ." She put the wand down and held out both her hands toward the quill, concentrating until her forehead crinkled. "See, nothing."

"This is fun?" Elphaba asked.

"No, see - I was trying to do the levitation spell from the book without saying the words out loud. Just thinking them silently. But it didn't work."

"I ask again - this is fun?"

"_Watch_, Elphie. Honestly, you're so impatient. This is much less impressive if I haven't shown you those two things first." She picked up her wand again. "Now watch." She pointed the wand toward the quill and again frowned at it in deep concentration. After a second, the quill rose into the air and Glinda grinned. "See? If I use my wand _and_ recite the spell silently, then it works! Neither the wand nor the silent spell work by themselves, but with both together I can do it."

Elphaba returned her smile. "Well done."

"Because I thought, if I had to say the words out loud all the time, then anyone who knew sorcery might know what spell I was going to do."

"It's a good thought," Elphaba admitted, sitting on the end of Glinda's bed. "Especially with . . ."

"With what?"

"Well, Morrible. She knows some of the spells - if we can believe her - and there may come a time when you want to do a spell without her knowing which one it is."

"Right." Glinda beamed at her and set the wand back down on the desk, which allowed the quill to drift slowly to rest. "Now you try."

Elphaba frowned. "With your wand?" Madame Morrible had never tried to make Elphaba use a wand, since it had seemed entirely unnecessary, and Madame Greyling had followed suit in her first few lessons with both girls.

"No," Glinda clarified, "I want to see if the spell will work silently for you without a wand. It stands to reason that it might - they all work better for you anyway." This was said without a trace of bitterness.

"All right." Elphaba was ashamed to admit she had never thought of trying it this way, but she had memorized the spell and it was easy enough to bring the words to the forefront of her mind. She held her hands before her and focused intently on the quill. After a moment, it began to rise.

Elphaba flushed with the happiness of success, but before she could say anything Glinda crossed to the desk and pushed the quill back down. "Your lips were moving," she said apologetically. "Better try again. And really concentrate on just _thinking_ the words."

Elphaba held her hands toward the quill again, this time thinking hard about both the spell and about keeping her mouth immobile. When the quill rose into the air with an even, steady motion, Glinda embraced her with such force that they almost fell over. "See!" Glinda crowed. "And it's even better for you - I bet if you practiced, no one would even know you were casting a spell at all."

"I bet if you practiced we could get it to work for you without the wand," Elphaba said, sitting back a little way from her friend. "It'll just take some work."

Glinda beamed and clasped Elphaba's hands, swinging them as a delighted child would. "See, I can be useful after all," she said.

"You're more than useful."

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Glinda called, "Come in! Oh, no, wait - it's locked." She hurried to the door and unlatched it, letting their visitor - Pfannee, as it turned out - peer into the room.

"Why was the door locked?" she asked.

Glinda threw a glance over her shoulder at Elphaba still sitting on her bed. "Um . . . private . . . girl talk. Come in."

"I'm not interrupting, am I?"

"No, we were done," Elphaba interjected, moving off Glinda's bed and crossing toward her own desk.

"All right." Pfannee sounded suspicious, but she didn't ask any more questions. "Glinda, we're going to dinner downtown. Would you like to come?"

"Oh!" Glinda looked between Pfannee and Elphaba for a moment. "That would be . . ." Elphaba nodded expectantly at her - it would be good for Glinda to go out with her friends, she thought - and Glinda finished, "- nice. Thank you."

"Good." Pfannee headed back toward the hallway. "I'm just going to ask Milla. You know she's still a little out of sorts since -" She flushed awkwardly. "- since Noala was sent home."

"I thought she didn't like Noala." Elphaba was proud of Glinda; her voice didn't wobble at all when pronouncing the name of the girl who had helped set her up.

"She didn't," Pfannee shrugged. "But now she has no roommate and you know Noala was the one who tended to get her invited places . . . Anyway, we'll meet you downstairs." She paused, then added, "You too, Elphaba. If you want."

Elphaba looked up quickly in surprise. "Oh," she stammered. "Well . . ."

"We'll be right down," Glinda interrupted, seeing Pfannee out the door. When the other girl had gone she turned back to Elphaba and said, "You are coming, aren't you?"

"I don't think so," Elphaba replied. "You go on - spending all this time holed up with me has to be getting to you by now."

Glinda didn't laugh as Elphaba had expected. Instead she said, "It was nice of her to ask you."

Elphaba spread her hands on the battered wood of her desk and studied them closely. "Yes, it was," she said. "She's been trying very hard to be especially nice to you lately. I may not always approve of her, but I have noticed that."

"So you think she asked you along just to be nice to me?"

"Or because she felt awkward. It doesn't particularly matter."

Glinda shifted from one foot to another, still watching Elphaba. Finally she said, "I'd like it if you came."

Elphaba looked up - to her consternation she saw that Glinda's expression was rather stricken and pained. She went over and took her roommate's hand gently, saying, "It's all right, I know. Now go on."

"No." Glinda's brow furrowed in something that was only slightly more mature than a pout. "I meant, please come."

"Glinda . . ."

"Please?" She tugged on Elphaba's hand. "You know I haven't been out much without you since . . . well, _that_. I'd feel better if you were there."

Elphaba had a moment of heartache before she recognized the calculation in Glinda's eyes. "You are shameless," she said, impressed in spite of herself.

"Well, never mind. I really do want you to come, Elphaba, please. I'm not trying to be nice to you, I just - want you with me. Please?"

The pleading look in Glinda's eyes was real now, and as always Elphaba found herself softening. "Fine," she sighed. "I can listen to Pfannee and Shenshen talk about their gowns for the Winter Ball for one afternoon."

"Good!" Glinda had fetched Elphaba's cloak and draped it over her shoulders almost before Elphaba had time to move. She wrapped her hand tightly around Elphaba's and dragged her from the room, not letting go when they met the other girls downstairs. Pfannee gave their joined hands a hard look, but Glinda didn't appear to notice - she only laughed at something Shenshen had said, and leaned her head against Elphaba's shoulder.

**Glinda**

Somehow she hadn't expected the summons - it had seemed to her that the whole thing should have been resolved. Madame had believed her, Elphaba had been a witness, and the police lieutenant who came to the university had seemed to believe her. So she was startled to receive the official-looking parchment scroll with her name written quite formally - "Miss Galinda Upland, Complaining Witness" - on the outside. She was still sitting on a bench outside the university mail room, staring at the message, when Elphaba walked by.

"Something wrong?" she asked, dropping onto the bench beside Glinda with an enormous stack of books balanced on her lap.

Glinda held the scroll out to her. "The inquest is at the end of the week. They say I have to come and testify."

Elphaba's eyes skimmed the scroll. "I didn't get one," she commented. "Can't I testify instead of you? I was there."

"Not the whole time," Glinda pointed out softly. "And I'm the complainant - it says so right there. You can't press charges against them for attacking me."

Elphaba laid a gentle hand on her knee. "Are you going to -"

"I have to, don't I? Otherwise they might set them free."

"No, I meant - are you going to be all right?"

Glinda didn't feel even remotely all right. Although in the past weeks she had been able to put most of the immediate fear and shock of the incident behind her, the idea of standing up at an inquest and explaining to a roomful of people what had happened - it made her want to run home to the Uplands, crawl into her childhood bed, and never leave. She swallowed hard. "I'll have to be," she said, but her voice cracked at the end and the threat of tears began to burn in her eyes. Elphaba freed an arm from her stack of books and wrapped it around Glinda's shoulders, and Glinda sat breathing carefully through her nose for a while before saying, "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry." With a final squeeze to her shoulder, Elphaba staggered to her feet, balancing her books precariously across her arms. "Come on, let's go home."

Glinda tucked the scroll into her pocket and followed, silently taking the top few books from Elphaba's stack and carrying them for her.

Thankfully, the room for the inquest was not crowded - there were a good number of people in attendance, but not the mob Glinda had feared. Elphaba sat with her in the front row, holding her hand tightly while the local magistrate talked about the charges and the accused and the recommendation from the Palace that they be sentenced harshly. Fiyero had wanted to come as well, but Glinda had firmly nixed that idea, not wanting him to hear what she would have to say.

When it was her turn, Glinda stood behind a rail at the magistrate's right hand, trying to control her trembling. Elphaba's last whispered words of advice had been "If you get scared, look at me," and Glinda did, although Elphaba's look of sympathetic encouragement was more pained than anything else. Guided by the magistrate, pitching her voice as loudly as she could to control its shaking, she explained how a girl she didn't recognize had told her that "a friend" wanted to speak with her in the history classroom.

"A friend?" the magistrate interrupted. "A boyfriend, you mean?"

"Yes," Glinda said, nodding hesitantly.

"Did you often meet him in empty classrooms?"

In the front row, Elphaba's head gave a tiny, almost indiscernible shake. "No," Glinda said without conscious thought. "I just thought he must have something private to discuss." _My goodness, I just lied at an inquest, sort of._ She felt a bit sick.

"So you went to meet this boy?"

"Yes." Elphaba had also advised her not to mention his name if they didn't ask - in this particular context, Fiyero's reputation was unlikely to be helpful, prince or not.

"And what happened when you got there?"

She swallowed and focused on Elphaba. "It was dark - in the hallway and in all the classrooms. I saw - there was a lamp lit in our history room, at the end of the hall. I went down there, and I opened the door, and I called Fi- his name. I didn't see anyone in the room."

"And then?"

"The door slammed shut. There were three boys there - they had been up against the wall behind the door when I came in."

"Did you recognize them?"

"Two of them I did. One of them is - was - in my life sciences class. His name is Malin. Another one I had seen around, but I didn't know who he was. The third I didn't recognize at all."

The magistrate held up his hand for her to stop, and then waved with his other hand toward a door at the side of the room. It opened to admit six guards, bringing with them the three boys who had assaulted Glinda. She could feel the color draining from her face and the strength going from her body - her heart seemed to stop, and she felt lightheaded and ill. Vaguely she observed that Elphaba looked equally horrified. Only one conscious thought made its way through the shock: _I can't believe they didn't warn me. Why didn't anyone warn me?_

The boys looked defiant, but none of them met Glinda's eyes. She looked desperately to Elphaba, who held her gaze steadily. Very slowly Elphaba raised a hand and pressed it over her own heart. Glinda nodded to her and, feeling somewhat strengthened, leaned against the rail to hold herself more upright.

"Are these the boys?" the magistrate asked, gesturing in their direction.

Glinda nodded, still not trusting her voice just yet.

"I need it for the record, please."

"Yes," she said, surprising herself with the haste and the excessive volume of her reply.

"What happened then - did they say anything to you?"

Were they really not going to remove the boys again? Did she have to finish giving her testimony with them standing right there - looking at her? She wrenched her gaze away from them and stared at Elphaba's forehead until she felt able to speak. "Yes," she began, hearing a quaver in her voice. "The - the one I didn't recognize -"

"Which one is that?"

"Closest to the door," she said, almost in a whisper, lifting one hand to point.

"Go on."

"He said . . ." She stopped and cleared her throat. "He said, 'We're glad you could make it.'"

"Did you understand what he meant?"

"No."

"What then?"

"I asked where - my friend was. They said he wasn't coming. I said - something like, 'oh, sorry' and I turned to leave."

"Go on."

"The - the same boy moved in front of the door. He said, 'don't you want what you came here for?' I said, I came because I thought my friend wanted to see me, and if he wasn't there I'd be going. He said 'no, you won't.' Then I saw him gesture to the other two, and he said 'come on,' or something like that. Then they grabbed my arms -"

"The other two boys did?"

"Yes - they grabbed my arms and took me across the room, and held me against the wall." She stopped, feeling her stomach turn, and stood taking deep breaths until the magistrate spoke again.

"Go on, please."

"Then -" She suddenly found that she couldn't look at Elphaba anymore, not while she was telling this part. She focused her gaze high on the far wall, over the heads of the assembled people. "He - um, the one who had been talking - he kissed me." She let her eyes go unfocused and tried to disassociate herself from the words as they left her mouth. _Just keep talking._ "I tried to kick him, but the other two held my legs down - with their legs. He said . . . 'see, now we're having fun, aren't we.' I screamed. And then he kissed me again. He just - he kept kissing me, and he pulled the pins out of my hair, and then he started trying to open the front of my dress. The other two were saying something, but I don't remember what. I was too scared."

"What then?"

"Then the door blew open." She spared a quick glance for Elphaba, who was sitting with one hand clasped tightly over her mouth.

"It _blew open_?"

She nodded. "It was my roommate - she's a sorcery student."

"Aren't _you_ a sorcery student?"

"I'm not very good at it," she said apologetically. Some of the people watching actually laughed in gentle sympathy, which made her feel surprisingly better.

"So your roommate had come."

"Yes."

"How did she know where to find you?"

"I had left her a note. And she had - should I tell this part?"

The magistrate nodded. "Go on."

"Well, she told me later that she had overheard some girls talking about playing a prank on someone in the history classroom. When she got my note, she figured it was me and thought I might need help."

"And she blew the door open."

"Yes. And the boy who had kissed me, he turned around and he hit her. And then she - put a spell on them, I guess, I'm not really sure how she did it. They fell down, and they couldn't move. She took me to tell the headmistress what had happened." She had left out the part where the boys realized Elphaba was the infamous green witch, but it didn't seem important. She suspected the local officials had already heard plenty from the Palace on that point.

"Madame Greyling?"

"Yes."

He nodded again. "Very well. We'll be hearing testimony from your headmistress after lunch. You are dismissed, Miss Upland."

She hesitated, holding tight to the rail. "I can go?"

"You can go."

She walked slowly until she had reached the edge of the first row of seating and saw that Elphaba had slipped from her seat out into the aisle - then she ran the last few steps into Elphaba's open arms. There was a slight commotion as those in the back recognized the green witch for the first time, but both girls ignored it. "Come on," Elphaba whispered. "Outside, then we can talk."

Once they had emerged into the cold sunshine, Glinda asked haltingly, "Was I very bad?"

"No!" Elphaba said emphatically, holding her tightly. "No, you were wonderful. I was proud of you."

"You didn't look proud."

Elphaba shook her head and rubbed her hands up and down Glinda's back. "I was just - sorry you had to do that. And when they brought them in -"

"I thought I would die."

"Me too. But you did really well, I promise."

"Can we go home, please?" She hid her face in Elphaba's neck. "I just want to rest for a while."

"Of course. Madame will tell us what happens later."

"And will you stay with me, this afternoon? - I know you usually go to the library . . ."

"I won't leave your side," Elphaba promised. "Let's go."

Glinda placed her hand in Elphaba's trustingly and allowed herself to be led back to school.


	9. Chapter 8

**Elphaba**

Nessa hadn't been herself for weeks - or, as Elphaba had begun to think in her darker moments, maybe this _was_ Nessa's self now. She had finally stopped talking about Boq constantly, and seemed to have accepted that whatever his reasons, he was no longer interested in her. The problem was that she had also withdrawn from her friends, refusing even to talk to Glinda more than was necessary for common politeness; however, not wanting to be seen alone for fear that she would look pathetic, she therefore needed to be accompanied by Elphaba nearly everywhere she went. Elphaba loved her sister and could certainly understand that for Nessa, who had never been denied anything (except, perhaps, the one thing she wanted above all - her freedom), suddenly finding herself bereft of the first boy she had ever liked must be very difficult. But that didn't mean she was thrilled to spend every available minute sitting with Nessa and guarding her from the curious looks of the other students. Elphaba would never stoop so low as to be glad of Nessa's handicap, but she often caught herself being rather grateful that she and Glinda had a room on the third floor.

She was partially distracted by her thoughts of Nessa as she climbed the stairs to their room after history class, and the rest of her mind was concentrating on something she had forgotten to write down during the lecture that day. Glinda no longer attended history class - she wouldn't enter the building - and fortunately the new professor hadn't bothered to learn anyone's name, but this meant that Elphaba had to take very careful notes for both of them. She didn't mind. Her distraction, however, was her excuse for not noticing until after she had shut the door behind her, hung her cloak on its hook, set her books on the desk, and kicked off her shoes, that Glinda was crying.

Elphaba trailed off in the middle of a sentence about roadbuilding in Gillikin when she finally noticed Glinda's red eyes and the telltale marks of tears on her face. She had been seeing those a bit too often, this year. When Glinda saw that she had Elphaba's attention she hastily rubbed her eyes and tried to smile, but Elphaba wasn't that easy to fool. "What's wrong?" she asked, hurrying to sit beside Glinda on her bed. "Did something happen?"

Glinda shook her head and said, "No," but the tears began to overflow her eyes again.

"Glinda." Elphaba sat closer and wrapped an arm around her roommate's shoulders. "Come on, what is it?"

"It's silly, never mind." Glinda patted Elphaba's knee and made to stand up, but Elphaba tugged her back down onto the bed.

"It's not silly if you're upset about it." Elphaba slid back until she was leaning against the headboard, then pulled at Glinda's shoulders until the other girl came up to rest against her. "I thought we told each other all our secrets, remember?"

Glinda smiled through the remnants of tears as she settled against Elphaba's shoulder. "Do you really tell me _all_ your secrets?"

"No," Elphaba replied, "but your secrets are generally nicer than mine."

At that Glinda laughed out loud, her hand coming up to rest along the side of Elphaba's neck. It tickled, but Elphaba forced herself not to pull away. "You're always taking care of me," Glinda said, "even when I'm being an idiot."

"Are you going to tell me what you're upset about?"

Glinda raised her head and looked Elphaba in the eye. Elphaba quirked one eyebrow, prepared to hear all about whatever Glinda thought was silly enough to be crying over in the middle of the afternoon. She was rather unprepared when Glinda kissed her instead.

The kiss was both gentler and less chaste than the hasty one Glinda had pressed upon her in the Wizard's palace. Elphaba accidentally deepened it by gasping, and was immediately surprised and ashamed when the increased contact made her stomach drop and her heart race. She raised both hands to Glinda's shoulders and pushed her away as gently as she could, stroking the gold hair as they parted to keep Glinda from feeling rejected.

For a long moment they sat frozen, both with lips still parted; then Glinda turned her head away and said quickly, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

"Hey." Elphaba continued stroking Glinda's hair back from her face until she had coaxed Glinda to look at her again. "You can kiss me anytime you like, I don't mind - but what's _wrong_? You're not yourself today." Glinda settled her head back onto Elphaba's shoulder without speaking, so Elphaba took a guess. "Is it Fiyero?"

A pause, then a tiny nod.

"Did he - do something?"

"No," Glinda said miserably. "No, that's just the problem."

"All right." Elphaba shifted Glinda to a more comfortable position and twined their fingers together. "I don't think I understand."

Glinda sat up abruptly, although she kept her fingers tangled with Elphaba's. "I think he thinks differently of me now."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think he feels the same about me since . . . well, because of what happened."

Elphaba frowned. "Are you suggesting that Fiyero thinks less of you somehow because you were attacked?"

Glinda nodded, her lip trembling with the fresh threat of tears.

"That doesn't sound like him." Elphaba squeezed Glinda's hand gently. "And hasn't he been very . . . well, supportive, through the whole thing?"

"Yes," Glinda admitted. "But - remember before we left for the Emerald City, when I said he had been acting so distant?"

Elphaba nodded.

"Well, since we got back, for a while everything seemed fine again. But lately - he's been very kind, and he spends a lot of time with me, but . . . it's just not the same. He'll take my arm, or hold my hand, but he hardly ever kisses me, and when he does, it's, well . . ." She leaned over and, before Elphaba could react, pressed a quick, very chaste kiss to her lips. "Like that. It's not really like before - he's not distant exactly, he just doesn't seem to _want_ me anymore."

"I'm sure it's not that." Indeed, Elphaba didn't think Fiyero was the type to be so callous as to reject a girl just because someone else had forced a kiss on her. "Maybe he's just . . . afraid of hurting you."

"What?"

"Sure," Elphaba said, warming to the idea. "Maybe he's afraid of scaring you, since . . . that happened. Maybe he's afraid you would take it the wrong way, or feel like you were being attacked again."

Glinda hesitated. "You really think that could be it?"

"Yes, I do." She held out her arm, and Glinda came to lean against her shoulder again. "I don't suppose you've thought of talking to him about it?"

"Have _you_ ever contemplated going up to a boy and asking him why he hasn't kissed you lately?"

"I take your point," Elphaba said, "but as no one has ever kissed me in the first place - other than you, of course - it would be a fairly silly question."

"Well, it's difficult in my case too."

"I have an idea - don't kiss me again, and in a few minutes I'll ask you why you haven't."

"I hate you," Glinda said fondly.

The conversation lingered in Elphaba's mind, especially because (although she stopped crying and allowed Elphaba to drag her down to dinner) Glinda did not appear much happier in the next few days. So it was that Elphaba found herself waiting for Fiyero outside his dormitory before their literature class, asking herself exactly when she had lost her mind.

"Elphaba!" He was clearly surprised to see her there, but he recovered quickly. He motioned toward the boy who had come out with him - a tall Munchkinlander probably, Elphaba thought, with dark hair and the freckles common among even the richer farmer-folk. "Do you know Rikk?" Fiyero asked. "My roommate."

"Oh - I don't think so."

Fiyero gave an exaggerated half-bow of introduction. "Rikk, Elphaba."

The other boy held out his hand, causing Elphaba to start with surprise. "I've seen you around," he said pleasantly.

"No doubt," she replied, managing to smile nonetheless.

"Are we skiving?" Fiyero asked hopefully.

"No," she said, unable to repress a small laugh. "I just - I needed to talk to you, about something. I thought maybe on the way?"

Fiyero turned to his roommate, who held up both hands and said, "I'll see you later." With a smile he added, "It's nice to meet you, Elphaba."

"How unique," she muttered as he turned away.

"Be nice, he's all right," Fiyero said as they turned and fell in step. "And you can be terrifying when you want to be, you know. What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Well - Glinda."

He almost stopped walking, but recovered. "All right."

"She thinks - somehow she's gotten the idea that . . ." Elphaba cringed and forced the words out. "That you feel differently about her because she was attacked."

Now he did stop walking. "What?"

Elphaba stopped to face him and shrugged. "She . . ." _This is the most awkward conversation of my life_, she mused. _Why did I think I liked her enough for this?_ She sighed. "She says you've been . . . acting differently, and she thinks that you think less of her, or like her less, or . . . don't want her, as much, because of what happened to her."

"That's crazy," he said, his eyes flashing at her. "Why would I feel differently about her because of something that wasn't her fault?"

"That's what I said!" Elphaba spread her hands helplessly. "But - you have to understand, she's trying so hard to get over this and forget about it, and - anything different, anyone's behavior toward her that changes, she's going to think it's about . . . that. So if you're - having a bad day, or . . . if there's some other reason for the way you're acting -"

"How am I acting, exactly?"

Blood rushed to her face; she looked up at the heavens and silently asked for strength. "She says you haven't - been - oh, please don't make me say it. Please say you know what I'm talking about." She peered at him out of the corner of one eye, and was relieved to see him nod.

"Yeah, maybe," he said quietly.

She let out the breath she had been holding. "Well, I'm sure you have your reasons, but - if she doesn't know what they are, she's going to assume . . . if you seem to have changed your feelings about her, she's going to assume it's because of what happened. It's just - where she is right now."

His eyes held hers with a staggering intensity; she dropped her gaze to his chin to avoid reacting. Finally he said, in a neutral tone that she couldn't read, "You're right. I understand completely." He passed his hand over his face tiredly and asked, "Does she know you're talking to me?"

"Oh, _no_. And please don't tell her, she'd kill me."

"Yeah, well." He turned and started walking toward their class, letting Elphaba catch up. "I have no desire to admit that I had to have this explained to me. You must think I'm a complete jerk."

"No, I don't," she said sincerely. "You weren't trying to hurt her."

"No," he said, more to himself and the sky than to her. "I was trying not to."

Elphaba gave him a curious look, but he didn't seem inclined to explain.

**Glinda**

She and Elphaba hurried from dinner toward their dormitory, arms folded and coats tightly fastened against the cold night. It was already dark and they were surrounded by other students hurrying home before they froze, so she didn't notice Fiyero's approach until he was right between them. She gave a little start, and was gratified to notice that Elphaba did as well. _At least I'm not the only jumpy one around here._

"Ladies," he said as cheerfully as he could with the cold wind blowing in their faces. "Think I could borrow Glinda for a while?"

For some reason Elphaba looked momentarily horror-struck, but Fiyero clapped her on the back and said, "Don't worry, Elphie, it has nothing to do with our literature class."

"Why would it?" Glinda asked, pressing her lips together to keep them from shivering.

"No reason!" Elphaba said brightly. "I'll see you at home then."

She hurried away, and Fiyero called after her, "Elphaba! Thought you'd like to know that Rikk said you were 'bizarrely normal.'" He grinned.

"Is that what passes for a compliment in your world?" She shook her head. "I'm going home before I freeze to the path. 'Bye!"

"What was that about literature class?" Glinda asked curiously as Fiyero took her arm and turned her away from the dormitories.

"Oh - um, well we ran into my roommate on the way to class and Elphaba - was nervous about meeting him, that's all. I promised her I wouldn't tell you. She was afraid you'd think she was being silly."

"But you just did tell me."

"Oh. Oops. Don't tell Elphaba."

"Why would she be nervous about meeting your roommate?" Glinda was beginning to feel more and more confused.

"You know how she is with new people. I guess I kind of laughed at her for it."

The wind picked up and she tucked her arm deeper through his. "Where are we going?"

He stopped. "Here."

Glinda looked up and felt her stomach clench. "No."

Fiyero wrapped both arms around her and pulled her against his chest as they stood looking up at the darkened facade of the history building. "Come on. It'll be all right."

"Fiyero, I really can't." She dug her heels into the ground and resisted his gentle attempts to pull her along.

"Yes you can." He cupped her face in his hands and bent down to her level. "You have two more years here, you have to go in sometime."

"No, I don't."

"You really do." He bent and kissed her, the same brief kisses she had complained of to Elphaba. "Look, I'll be right here with you. I have an idea - I want to help."

"An idea?" Her teeth were beginning to chatter and she wondered how long he would keep this up.

"You trust me, don't you?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"And you're really cold, right?" He smiled. "Come on. I promise, I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

She nodded, feeling her breath growing shallow. She forced herself to inhale slowly as they entered the darkened building and started up the hallway.

"See, no one here but us," Fiyero whispered. "And professors upstairs."

She gripped his hand tightly as they continued up the hall. "They fixed the door," she whispered haltingly as they reached the outside of their history classroom.

"Replaced it, actually," he replied. "You'd be able to see it's new if the lights were on. Elphaba was pretty thorough." He slipped an arm around her waist and pushed the door open. "Come on."

Trembling overtook her body as they stepped inside. With moonlight providing the only light, the classroom looked so similar to the last time she had seen it - well, before Elphaba had knocked over most of the furniture anyway. The wall against which she had been trapped loomed across the room, drawing her frozen attention.

Fiyero left her side just long enough to lock the door. "What are you doing?" she asked, slightly panicked.

He returned and pulled her close. "I thought you'd feel better knowing no one else can get in. Well -" he rolled his eyes a little "- except Elphaba, I guess."

She nodded and looked around the room, feeling her trembling slowly begin to subside. "So this was your idea?"

"Not exactly." His hand came up to hold her chin, and he bent to brush a soft kiss against her lips. "You have some pretty awful memories of this place."

"Yes, I do."

"I thought maybe we'd give you some better ones." He kissed her again, no less chastely but longer and with clear intention. "All right?"

Her heart pounded, but she nodded. "All right."

This time when he kissed her, there was nothing chaste about it. _I guess Elphaba was right_, she thought distantly as he unclasped her coat and eased it off her shoulders. He broke their kiss long enough to glance behind him and sit down on a desk, pulling her forward to stand between his knees. He shed his own coat quickly, then pulled her back into a gently passionate kiss, his hands stroking over her unbound hair. She sighed into his mouth at the feeling of everything she had been missing and lifted her hands to rest them over his chest. He covered them with his own, holding onto her wrists, and pulled back to ask again, "All right?"

She gave him a tremulous smile and replied quietly, "Yes."

"Good." He kissed her again, then brought his hands up between them to the collar of her dress. By coincidence she was wearing a dress that opened in the front, just as she had been on _that_ day, and his fingers carefully slid the first button free of its clasp.

This was nothing new; he had often (although not recently) opened the top of her clothes just enough to reach the upper curve of her breasts, and he had always heeded her request to stop there. But this time she felt her heart begin to race; she wrapped her hands around his wrists and asked, "Fiyero, how much do you know about - about what happened? And about what I said, at the inquest?"

He stopped his motions and looked down into her eyes. "Everything, I think," he replied, confirming her suspicions. He brushed a kiss across the knuckles of her right hand. "Does it matter?"

"Elphaba told you." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, she did." He frowned somewhat comically in the darkness. "I don't think I was supposed to tell you that, either. Don't tell Elphaba."

"Are you really that afraid of her?" she asked, feeling herself smile for the first time since they had left Elphaba on the path outside.

"I don't think I want her mad at me." Tentatively he freed a second button. "She only told me because she didn't want you to have to."

"I'm not going to yell at her," she promised, her breath hitching as he loosed a third button. "Fiyero . . ."

He kissed her, gently, and murmured against her lips, "Trust me."

"I do," she stammered. His hands were working steadily now, pausing only when he had opened her dress to the waist. She had no idea why she wasn't stopping him.

His fingers skimmed up from her waist, brushing over her body through the slip she was wearing under her dress. It laced at the top to hold it tight; she felt her eyebrows lift and her breath catch but said nothing as he began to draw the laces free. She was relieved to feel a throb of arousal as his fingers traced over the skin between her breasts - at least it meant she was capable of feeling something other than fear.

"Still trust me?" he asked, bending to kiss her neck, his breath hot on her skin.

"Y-yes," she managed. And she _did_, that was the miracle of it. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling his strong shoulders under her hands as he finished unfastening the top of her slip and parted the fabric, exposing her chest to the cool air.

Her fingers twisted nervously in his shirt - she trusted him, but she had never let anyone see her like this, not even Elphaba by accident (she didn't think). "It's all right," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her lips before lowering his head and kissing the place where the swell of her breasts began. She closed her eyes as his hands moved gently over her, gasping and arching her back when his lips followed them. When she didn't think she could take any more she whispered, "Kiss me, please," and he immediately obeyed, raising his head to bring their lips together.

With shaking fingers she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it open, then tugged him closer and pressed against him, sighing at the feeling of skin touching skin. His arms wrapped tightly around her as they kissed, supporting the back of her head and holding her firmly to his body. When they finally broke apart they were both breathing hard, and his face was as flushed as hers felt. She rested her hands shyly on his bare chest, unable to meet his eyes.

"Better?" he asked, taking hold of her chin and forcing her to look up at him.

She smiled, laughed, covered her face with one hand, scrunched her eyes shut, and nodded.

"Good." He gave her one more kiss, then carefully gathered the fabric of her slip together and began lacing it again. To keep herself from laughing at his somewhat ungainly efforts she focused on buttoning and smoothing his shirt, stepping in to help only when he reached the point of trying to rebutton her dress.

"Fiyero?" she asked hesitantly as he fastened the last few buttons at her collar.

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

His hands stilled and he offered her a wobbly smile. "I love you, too."


	10. Chapter 9

**Elphaba**

She didn't at all like the way Glinda was looking at her.

It was a cold weekend morning, and they'd opted to make tea themselves and stay close to the fireside rather than venturing out to breakfast. The first snow of the year was late, but it couldn't be far off now - to Elphaba's practiced Munchkinlander eyes the sky was a suspicious grey-white, and the air had a definite smell of ice. But Glinda wasn't looking out the window at the near-frozen landscape; she was looking at Elphaba. Or studying her, really. She studied Elphaba while she pinned her hair into an unusually practical knot, while Elphaba added a log to the banked fire and stirred it to life, while they both tried to warm their stockings by the fire before putting them on, and while they took turns trying to pour tea without burning their fingers. Finally Elphaba set down her cup and said, "What?"

"What, what?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm not looking at you like anything," Glinda huffed, sitting primly as close to the fire as she could get without igniting her skirt.

"You certainly are, and it's beginning to scare me."

Glinda gave her a teasing smile. "I'm not the one who scares people for entertainment, _Miss_ Elphaba."

"You're not the one with manners, either," Elphaba said, "at least not today. You've been staring all morning, out with it."

"It's just - well . . ."

"Well what?"

Glinda crossed one leg over the other and half-stood awkwardly to pull an envelope down from her dresser, flipping it up between deft fingers. "This."

"What about it?"

"You read yours, didn't you?" Glinda asked, pulling from the already-opened envelope an official university invitation with the words "Winter Ball" in icy blue script.

"I didn't have to, we've known it was coming up for weeks. So the Winter Ball is why you've been staring at me all day?"

"Are you going?"

Elphaba sighed. "Yes."

"Really?" Glinda looked as though she couldn't decide whether to be pleased or shocked. "I thought I was going to have to beg you."

"Why would you want to beg me?"

"Because I like you," Glinda singsonged, grinning. "But who convinced you, since it wasn't me?"

"Nessa - well, doesn't want to go at all," Elphaba began, reaching for the teapot which they had placed on the hearthstone to keep it warm.

"Wait, careful," Glinda interrupted. She wrapped her skirt around her hand and picked up the teapot herself, refilling both their cups. "So Nessa doesn't want to go to the Ball."

"No. But she also doesn't want to be seen _not_ going, _but_ she doesn't have anyone to go with her . . . and that's where I come in."

"So all her friends have dates?"

"Of course. And I doubt she'd ask them for help anyway, she's been so queer lately." Elphaba took a cautious sip of her tea, burning her tongue despite the care. "I don't mind helping Nessa anywhere, of course, but . . . well, I was going to say 'picture me at a fancy ball,' but then, that's what you've been doing all morning, isn't it?"

"Mmm-hmm," Glinda said cheerfully. "Actually this is really good."

"How?"

"Well - wait, has anyone asked you to go with them? Other than Nessie."

"You mean like a boy? Have you lost your mind?"

"So," Glinda said, ignoring her last remark, "this way you can go, but no one will think twice about whether you have a date or not."

"Because I'm there to help Nessa."

"Exactly."

Elphaba shrugged. "I guess that's not so awful."

"And then we can be there together -"

"Us and Fiyero, you mean."

"And you know we need it, Elphaba, really," Glinda continued, ignoring her again. "It's half-term, we're likely to be hearing from the Wizard soon."

"I know," Elphaba replied soberly.

"So, one night to _not_ think about that, or . . . anything else. Doesn't that sound good?"

"You're asking me to spend an entire night not thinking about _anything_?"

"To do your best, anyway." Glinda pulled her knees up to her chest and spread the hem of her skirt demurely over her feet. "But now we need to think."

That studying look was back, and Elphaba dreaded what it meant. "About what?"

"What you're going to wear."

"I knew that was coming," Elphaba told the ceiling, "and yet I asked anyway."

**Glinda**

Glinda couldn't help dancing, just a little.

Fiyero had been absolutely perfect lately - well, maybe not entirely perfect, because that odd meditative look did come over his face at the strangest times and he sometimes didn't quite seem to know what to say to her - but he was as attentive as she could possibly ask. And they were going to a ball together. And Elphaba was coming. And she was letting Glinda braid her hair.

The question of Elphaba's hair had been hotly debated in their room over the past week, with Elphaba summarily rejecting most of Glinda's first ten or twenty suggestions (the mention of curls had been met with a "not if my life depended on it"). She had finally agreed to let Glinda braid the sides back from her face and pin the braids up - "It'll be pretty, but you'll look as if you could just be going to class," Glinda had wheedled, seeing Elphaba beginning to weaken. "Not that I know why you would want that."

Elphaba had run a hand speculatively over her hair while she groped for a response. "It's - I can't look as if I'm trying too hard," she'd said finally. "Can you . . . understand that?"

Glinda had to admit that she could. She also had to admit that if she kept dancing while trying to do this, she was going to jab a hairpin into Elphaba's head, so she forced her feet to keep quiet.

"There," she said, setting the last pin in place and taking the opportunity to run her fingers through the masses of thick, dark hair that still hung down Elphaba's back. "Done, and beautiful."

"Can I see?"

"You can get that worried look off your face," Glinda replied, but she reached for a hand mirror as she spoke. "Here, see."

Elphaba frowned as she studied her hair from several angles. "It's very neat," she finally said with evident approval.

"My goal in life." She bent to press a kiss to the top of Elphaba's head, then wrapped her arms around her roommate's neck and studied their dual reflection in the room's one large mirror. "See, we go perfectly together."

"You have bizarre taste," Elphaba said, but she was smiling. "And you'd better get dressed now, unless you're going in that robe."

"Right." Glinda carefully slid her white and silver-blue gown over her shoulders, trying not to disturb her hair. She was generally able to button herself up even in the back, but these buttons were tiny and the catches even smaller. She had managed one before she noticed Elphaba holding out an impatient hand with fingers twitching. "Oh - thanks," she said, sidling closer.

She always loved having Elphaba do up her dresses because, unlike any of her other friends or even her maid at home, Elphaba always slipped her own hand down the back of the dress first to avoid pinching Glinda's skin. In the tighter gowns it made sense, but more importantly, it made Glinda feel pleasantly warm and cared for. "How do you know to do that?" she asked suddenly this time.

"Do what?"

"With your hand."

Elphaba paused, both her words and her fingers. "Oh. Having a younger sister, I guess."

"I never would have thought of doing that, but it's nice."

"You'd have thought of it, if _you'd_ ever pinched Nessa's back in a hook and eye." Elphaba was working faster now, almost at the top of the row of tiny buttons. "Or caught her hair in a buttonhole. There, all done." She smoothed her hands down Glinda's back and smiled at her in the mirror. "And beautiful."

Glinda turned and took her friend's hands. "You too, although you don't believe me." It was true, too - Nessa had, for the sake of appearances mostly, insisted on new dresses for both herself and Elphaba, and Elphaba's was a simple dark blue gown that managed to be prettily formal merely by being silk and cut better than her other dresses. She'd borrowed a pair of Nessa's shoes - not _those_ shoes, the precious silver ones that had been a gift from their father, but simple ones with a slight heel - which mostly had the effect of making her look even taller and leaner. Still, Glinda thought she was pretty, and even prettier when she deigned to smile.

"Where are you meeting Fiyero?" Elphaba asked, reaching for both their cloaks.

"Just downstairs - he wanted to be able to help with Nessa's chair in case there was ice; isn't that sweet of him?"

"Very," Elphaba said, not unkindly.

Fiyero's smile when he saw her was as warm as anyone could expect, and he took both her hands and kissed her right there in the downstairs front hall. He didn't mention her dress, but then he never did - it was one of the things they just assumed about each other. His eyes only flickered behind her after they had broken apart. "Hello Elphaba, Nessa."

Nessa was painfully subdued in contrast to her shining excitement on the night of her first college dance. She looked lovely, even with her coat mostly covering her gown (_Green, really, Nessa?_ Glinda couldn't help thinking), but there was something missing in her eyes. Glinda opened her mouth to make some benign comment, but stopped when she saw Elphaba quietly shaking her head.

Fiyero turned out to have been unusually insightful - it had rained during the afternoon, and there _was_ new ice on the paths. Some trial and error showed them that the best way was for Elphaba's practiced hands to continue piloting the chair while Fiyero hovered close by to catch either the chair or Elphaba's elbow, should either slip. Glinda picked carefully ahead, calling out the location of potentially dangerous patches and hoping this was as helpful as she thought it might be. On one of her glances backward she smiled to see Fiyero speaking low to Elphaba in an overtly friendly sort of way, but the next time she looked back Elphaba appeared a bit flustered and they were studiously ignoring each other. Glinda decided he had probably been stupid enough to tell her she looked pretty. Fiyero, so used to charming everyone, was definitely the type to fall into that trap no matter how well he knew Elphaba.

Elphaba did smile just a little when they entered the ballroom, with its lights twinkling and the heat welcome on their cold faces. While Fiyero was gathering all of their coats and handing them to the attendant, Elphaba and Nessa bent low in whispered conference. At the end of it, Elphaba lightly took Glinda's arm and gestured to the row of tables on one side of the room. "We'll be over there," she whispered close to Glinda's ear. "Have fun!"

Glinda grabbed Elphaba's waist to detain her. "You won't disappear all night?"

"If you know where I am, I haven't disappeared," Elphaba pointed out. "Anyway, a few of Nessa's friends seem to have gathered over there, so . . ."

"Elphaba -" Her hand tightened on Elphaba's waist, suddenly not wanting her friend to leave her side. The ballroom was crowded and she didn't recognize half of the students there - not something that had ever bothered Glinda before, but now . . . "Don't leave. Just till Fiyero comes back, please?"

"Oh." Elphaba stepped closer and slipped her arm around Glinda's waist, acting as though she were just leaning in to tell her something. "Of course, I'll wait with you."

"It's just there are so many people - I know I'm being silly."

"It's perfectly fine if you don't want to be alone." Elphaba's voice was low and reassuring. "Everyone feels that way, including Nessa or why would I be here?"

"It's not being embarrassed I'm worried about."

"I know that." Elphaba had leaned close enough now that she could give Glinda's cheek a quick kiss under the guise of whispering. "Here's Fiyero. Listen, if he has to go anywhere or wants to talk to someone or anything, just ask him to walk you over to me first. He'll understand." She slipped away just as Fiyero was taking Glinda's other arm.

"Is Elphaba mad at me or something?" Fiyero asked, leading her toward the dance floor.

"Because she just left, you mean? No, she just had to get back to Nessa - is there any reason she should be mad at you?"

"No, no reason. Ready to dance?"

She gave him her very brightest smile. "Sure."

**Elphaba**

Nessa's friends were being very polite to her, and even more polite to Nessa. This was not a good thing. Granted, having friends was in fact new to Elphaba, but Glinda and even Fiyero had taught her well that politeness between friends was a bad sign.

It was possible that their over-care was caused by having a notorious witch in their midst, but somehow Elphaba didn't really think that was the case.

She also had her eye on a bigger problem, one that was currently talking with a cluster of other boys on the far side of the room. At least Boq had the good grace not to stare at Glinda this time - Elphaba had never considered herself to be unobservant, and she didn't intend to begin now - but he was also thoroughly ignoring Nessa and her. Nessa was pretending not to notice him, but she bristled visibly when a couple of bold Munchkin girls joined Boq's group.

Glinda and Fiyero appeared in the crowd on the dance floor while Elphaba was watching Nessa watch Boq, and Glinda happened to catch Elphaba's eye at a moment when Elphaba was feeling especially awkward about it. Without breaking her rhythm Glinda looked quickly over her shoulder, presumably spotted Boq, and sent a grimace of sympathy back in Elphaba's direction. Elphaba shrugged, hoping Nessa hadn't noticed any of this exchange.

Her eyes sought out Glinda again, however, and with suspicion this time, after a pleasant-looking Munchkin boy she didn't recognize had approached Nessa. He bowed politely and asked to accompany Nessa to go and have a drink, adding to the rest of the girls and to Elphaba, "if you don't mind my borrowing her, that is."

Nessa looked taken aback and not entirely interested, but a moment later she had managed to rearrange her expression and even to smile at the boy as she accepted his invitation. Her eyes dared Elphaba to say anything.

"I can vouch for him," a voice behind Elphaba said. She whirled around, hands leaving the handles of Nessa's chair, and found herself confronted with Fiyero's roommate.

"Hello," she said noncommittally.

The boy offered her a friendly enough smile. "We met the other week, with Fiyero - Rikk, remember?"

Elphaba nodded. "I remember."

Rikk gestured toward the smaller boy. "Kiren's an old friend from home - well, we're all Munchkinlanders here, aren't we?" When Elphaba didn't reply, he added, prodding, "I think he can be trusted with the governor's daughter."

Nessa's eyes were still flashing dangerously at her sister, so Elphaba stepped away from the chair and tried to make herself smile at the Munchkin - Kiren. "Of course," she said to him. "I'll be here if you need me, Nessa."

As they rolled off, however, Elphaba searched the dance floor for her roommate. She wasn't hard to find - Glinda was near the center of the floor, giving her a slightly guilty look over Fiyero's shoulder. "Hasn't she learned?" Elphaba muttered under her breath.

"She said you'd be difficult."

Elphaba spun around again, the action making her hair swing into her face. "So you're responsible for this?" she asked Rikk, who was still standing behind her.

"Oh no, Glinda is. I just supplied the boy. So I'm only responsible . . ." He counted on his fingers. "Third-hand."

"Who's second?"

"Fiyero, of course." He probably thought the look he was giving her was charming, and he was almost right. "Anyway you don't have to worry, I've chosen well. We really are old friends from home, and he's polite, honorable, and best yet, _not_ in love with Glinda. Or anyone else that I know of."

Elphaba nervously checked to make sure Nessa's friends weren't listening. "Does everyone know everything around here?"

"They do when they live with Fiyero." Rikk's smile broadened. "Are you going to dance with me?"

Elphaba laughed before she could stop herself. "What?"

He took a step closer and held out his hand. "Dance with me. Your sister's taken care of for the time being, after all."

Elphaba leaned back against a table, feeling strangely . . . flirtatious? That certainly couldn't be right. Still, the words poured out. "I should dance with you just because you got my sister out of the way for me?"

"Or maybe I only agreed to introduce Kiren to your sister so that _you_ would be free for a while." He hadn't dropped his hand.

Elphaba's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Is that what Glinda's up to, then?"

"This is not Glinda's idea, or Fiyero's, or anyone else's but mine. Glinda still feels bad about your sister and Boq, and that's all." He extended his hand a bit closer. "Please? You're leaving me looking a bit ridiculous."

She ducked her head briefly, but after all, she had no real reason to refuse - and if she couldn't trust Fiyero's roommate, who could she? Hesitantly, she lifted her hand and placed it in his. "But only because Fiyero said you were all right," she cautioned.

"I am perfectly all right," he agreed with a rather satisfied smile. Elphaba let him tuck her arm through his and lead her to the dance floor, feeling all the while oddly . . . normal.


	11. Chapter 10

**Glinda**

The envelope was sitting innocently in a pile of her mail from home - letters from friends too young, too uninterested, or too already-married to attend Shiz, along with the weekly letter from her parents and a note from her auntie in Settica - as well as two dull university notices and a letter for Elphaba from her father, no doubt containing the usual admonitions to take care of Nessarose and try not to explode anything. Despite the brightly decorated stationery preferred by Glinda's friends and her mother, the emerald green envelope made its presence known as soon as even the smallest corner peeked out of the pile. Although she had known it must be coming, the sight of the envelope itself felt like an arrest warrant.

Glinda smiled politely at the mail clerk and readjusted the pile in her hands so that the green wasn't showing. Somehow she felt as though walking across campus with that telltale letter in her hands would brand her all over again as not-really-one-of-us, would remind the other students that she had already been separated out and made different. And not necessarily in a good way.

Boq waved to her across the lawn as she scurried back to the dormitory, but for once she had a sterling excuse - she waved back hastily with her free hand and called, "Sorry, but I _really_ have to find Elphaba!"

The door to their room was locked and she almost pulled out her key and opened it straightaway, but another thought came to her and she knocked softly and called, "Elphie?"

She heard footsteps inside the room, and then the door was unlocked and opened enough for Elphaba to peer into the hallway. "Sorry," she said, pulling her glasses off and allowing Glinda to open the door wider. "I was studying - well, come in quickly."

Sure enough, the Grimmerie was sitting open on Elphaba's desk. "I thought I'd better knock," Glinda explained, dropping the mail on her bed and shrugging out of her coat as she went to see what spell Elphaba had been studying. "Did you figure out something new?"

"No, and I've been trying for hours." Elphaba sounded frustrated, and her long braid looked as though she had been worrying at it. "I'm getting so nervous about what to expect when -"

"Oh!" Glinda interrupted. She held up a hand to silence Elphaba's protest. "Look, what came today."

At the sight of the green envelope Elphaba paled, just as Glinda felt she must have in the mailroom. "Well," Elphaba said quietly. "Did you open it?"

"No, I was waiting for you." Glinda started to slip her finger under the seal, then looked up at her roommate. "Ready?"

"Ready won't change what it says," Elphaba replied, giving her a quick nod.

Glinda nodded in reply and opened the letter, scanning the elaborate script as quickly as she could. _Miss Upland and Miss Thropp are requested . . ._ "Next week," she told Elphaba. "For five days."

Elphaba held out her hand for the letter. "Can we survive five days?" she asked, only half-joking.

"It doesn't say much about what we'll be doing."

"No, they wouldn't want to give that much away in advance. I'm sure they want us nervous."

"Well, you'll have to survive," Glinda said, striving for a casual, jovial tone. "Because I don't plan on doing this alone."

"Whatever it is," Elphaba agreed.

She looked so forlorn that Glinda held out an arm and motioned for Elphaba to come and sit with her on the bed. "Are you ready to go back?" she asked after Elphaba had settled in beside her. "I mean - will you be all right, being in the City again?"

Elphaba closed her eyes and rested her head just for a moment on Glinda's shoulder before straightening up again. "If you can go back to history class, I can do this," she said finally. "Can't have you be braver than me."

"No, I imagine you'd die of mortification," Glinda said fondly. "And we can't have that happen."

"I suppose we should be looking at this as an opportunity," Elphaba commented. "Once we have a better idea of what they expect from us, we'll know what we can make of it. I hope."

"That's right." The mention of 'what we can make of it' made Glinda extremely nervous, and she threaded her fingers through Elphaba's to cover her hesitation. "We'll have to be . . . on alert."

"We should be anyway," Elphaba said, looking down at their entwined hands. "I don't exactly trust their intentions - the Wizard's, or Morrible's, or anyone else there."

"That's true." Remembering something she had read, Glinda tugged the letter from Elphaba's other hand. "Look, this hotel they're sending us to is a different one. I remember it; it's right next to the Palace."

"Not taking any chances, I guess."

"No, they'll probably be keeping a close eye - Elphaba." Something had just occurred to her, something that made her even more nervous. "Do you think they can spy on us - in the hotel? Do you think that's why they have one so close?"

"I'm sure it's possible," Elphaba said, mirroring Glinda's startled expression. "We should be careful what we say." Her eyes lowered, and some of the surprise bled from her face. "Afraid?"

"Yes," Glinda admitted readily. "But you can get that look off your face now, please."

"What look?"

"That this-is-all-my-fault look you're so good at." She wrapped her arm around Elphaba's shoulders and pulled stubbornly until Elphaba consented to be embraced. "I won't have it."

"Whatever you say," Elphaba muttered from Glinda's shoulder.

**Elphaba**

The day after the Wizard's summons arrived, Elphaba slipped into one of the usually-vacant study rooms on the top floor of the library, her satchel full of spells she had copied from the Grimmerie in the hopes of finding something that would aid with translation. The room was not empty, however, and she stood in the doorway blinking in surprise.

"Oh, don't look like that," Fiyero grumbled. "I have a problem."

She hesitated, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "You can't find your way out of the library?"

"You're just hilarious." He nudged the empty seat beside him with his elbow, and Elphaba - albeit slowly - took the hint. He was surrounded by stacks of books, some of them very dusty and decrepit in appearance, and his casual reclining pose with feet perched on the opposite chair was belied by the worry lines creasing his forehead. "I hear you're going to the Emerald City next week," he said as she sat down.

"I'd rather not think about that right now."

"Fair enough." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Want to hear about my problem instead?"

"All right," she replied cautiously.

"My parents have received an offer of marriage. For me," he added when she didn't respond.

"Who from?" she asked, grammar forgotten in her surprise. Somehow an official offer made to his parents - a king and queen, no less - didn't seem exactly like Glinda's style.

"The ruler of a neighboring tribe, a much smaller one. For his daughter."

"Oh." Elphaba eased the satchel off her shoulder and settled into her chair. "Is that . . . common?"

"For an offer to be made? Very - happens all the time. Not all of them are political offers, of course - sometimes the two people decide to marry each other, and it's done the official way just for the sake of diplomacy. The purely political offers are accepted less often."

"And . . ." She was almost afraid to ask. " . . . this one?"

"Is very much a political offer. The girl's fifteen and I've never even seen her - I don't think."

"_Fifteen_ and they want to marry her off?"

"Well, they're not suggesting we actually get married right now." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "So there you go, that's my problem."

She frowned. "I thought you said the political offers were accepted less often. Are your parents - have they accepted?"

"No, and honestly they're not inclined to."

"So . . ."

"But it's not quite that easy. This tribe is small, but they could cause a lot of trouble if they wanted to. My parents have said they'll decline the offer, _if_ I can think of some way to appease the girl's parents."

"Oh." She was just noticing that most of the books on the table appeared to be histories of the tribes of the Vinkus, along with some modern political works on the region. "So you have to figure out what they hope to gain from the marriage - besides you - and find some other way to give it to them?"

"Yes - and to get something for ourselves out of it, as well. Otherwise it would be too transparent that we're just trying to buy them off." He sighed, hands coming to rest on the open volume before him. "Really I think my father's just trying to force me to take the responsibility, you know? It's not the first proposal they've had for me -"

"Really?"

"- but I was eight the last time, so I couldn't exactly contribute much to the negotiations," he finished with a tired smile.

"So that's the real problem - figuring out what deal to offer them."

"Right."

She had been fighting the urge to smile for the last several minutes, and finally she allowed one side of her mouth to turn up. "Wishing you'd paid more attention in political science?"

"Very." He caught sight of her expression and added, "This is not funny, you know."

"It is just a little bit funny." She motioned past him to a large stack of newspapers. "What are those?"

"Anything recent I could find on tribal economics. The Vinkus doesn't exactly have a newspaper, but the big stuff gets covered by the other papers."

"Pass them over."

His face lit up at the request. "Really?"

"I'll warn you though - I've never studied political science at all."

"Well, being ten times cleverer than me ought to make up for it." As he handed her the stack of newspapers he asked, "The Governor's daughter never had to study politics?"

"The Governor's _other_ daughter did." She looked away, hoping he wouldn't be able to read her expression. "Anyway, I think both Glinda and I are about to learn quite a lot about politics outside of school."

"That's true."

He was quiet then, and she settled back with the first paper in the pile - a Gillikin newspaper describing the effect of droughts on the various cattle herds in the Vinkus - but he interrupted her thoughts soon enough. "I should be teasing you, you know."

She looked at him over the top of the paper. "On principle?"

"About my roommate."

Her stomach did a queer turn when he said that, but she ignored it. "Really, two people dancing together twice - at a dance - is the best gossip Shiz is producing these days?"

"He hasn't stopped talking about you, actually. He thinks you're interesting."

She focused her eyes on the newspaper in her hands, hoping he would get the idea. "Most people think I'm _interesting_, Fiyero."

"But in a good way?"

"Are you sure you want help? Because I could go."

He placed a restraining hand on her elbow. "No, I'm sorry - I promise, I'll shut up."

They parted at the end of the afternoon with a promise on both sides to meet the following night. When Elphaba returned to her dormitory, the first thing Glinda asked her was, "Have you seen Fiyero? I haven't seen him all day."

Elphaba felt oddly guilty, although she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. "I just saw him in the library," she said casually, taking off her cloak and hanging it on its hook.

"Really?"

"He said he had a . . . research project." Glinda looked surprised, so Elphaba assumed that Fiyero had not shared his news from home with her. She supposed she could understand why - Glinda had seemed so pleased lately with the way things were going between her and Fiyero; she couldn't be thrilled to hear that he was in even the smallest danger of being forced to marry a fifteen-year-old Winkie princess. Secure in the knowledge that Glinda wouldn't ask too many questions about any schoolwork that didn't have to do with sorcery, Elphaba pulled one of the newspaper articles out of her satchel and settled in at her desk to read.

By the time she met Fiyero in the library the next night, she felt that at least she had something to contribute, even if it wasn't a fully-formed solution. His expression as she walked into the room was so hopeful that she immediately held up both hands and said, "I have the beginning of an idea - but you'll have to tell me if it's any good because I don't know the Vinkus well enough."

"All right," he said expectantly as he watched her slide into her chair.

"Here's what I think," she began, pulling the pile of newspapers from her bag. "The one thing her tribe doesn't have much of a share in is industry."

"Coordinated industry?" he interrupted. "Neither does any other tribe in the Vinkus, hardly."

"Right." She spread her hands on the table, almost unconsciously using different fingers to represent different geographical areas. "And their cattle lands, over here to the north, are drying up, while yours are still basically all right - aren't they?" When he nodded, she continued, "So, if you had married this girl, would they expect to be able to share somehow in your grazing lands?"

"Almost definitely."

"So what you need is some kind of arrangement that allows them to participate in a new industry not affected by the drought, while also giving some obvious benefit to your tribe."

"And you have an idea for that?"

"Sort of. I was thinking, your tribe has been so powerful because you control the routes in and out of the rest of Oz, right? The trading routes?"

"That's right." He began mapping out the routes for her, tracing in and out of her fingers and over the backs of her hands, seemingly not noticing her discomfort. "The major routes go through here and here, and even the trade route from Gillikin has to run through our territory _there_, because there's a river next to your thumb."

"So, what if you were able to make a deal allowing their tribe to be the sole importer of . . . some particular kind of goods - which you can presumably control, since you control all the import points."

She could practically see the thoughts making their way through his head. "That's . . . smart," he said finally. "We've never done that before, mostly because it's been more _exporting_ by agents from outside the Vinkus than importing by any of us. And what does our tribe get out of it?"

"I was thinking a commission - a fee for allowing the goods to pass through your territory. Will it cause trouble with the neighboring regions though, if as you say they've been used to bringing their goods straight into the Vinkus without much trouble?"

"Not if it's something we don't already import," he said slowly. "Something completely new."

"I was thinking that, too," she said. "Because that way the other tribes wouldn't have anything taken away from them. What I needed from you is to know what you don't already import."

He slammed his hand abruptly down onto the stack of books at his side. "You won't believe it," he said, "but I think I just read the answer before you got here." He slid one book out from the middle of the pile and flipped to a page he had marked. "Jewelers in the Vinkus have been able to mine almost everything they needed, _but_ the only way they've been able to get emeralds is by sending agents to the Emerald City to buy them personally. The trade restrictions have made emeralds enormously valuable, but have kept merchants from sending large quantities of them out into the far territories."

"But if one of the tribes skipped over the Emerald City merchants," Elphaba mused, "and bought them directly from the Quadlings . . ."

"It's a good enough suggestion to get my father off my back, anyway," Fiyero decided, closing the book again.

"Does it have to actually work - I mean, does her tribe have to actually accept the deal in order for you to get out of marrying her?"

"He didn't say," Fiyero replied, "but I suspect not. I think he won't have a problem negotiating with them on my behalf; he just wanted me to have to think about it a little first." He grinned. "I should have just asked you in the first place."

"Well, you'll know for the next time someone insists on you marrying their daughter." She hesitated, but decided to take the plunge. "Does your family know about Glinda?"

He froze momentarily in the act of gathering his books together. "No, they don't," he replied. "I try not to let my family know much of anything before they have to."

"I can understand that, I guess." The atmosphere in the small room had suddenly become very tense, and she was more than ready to escape.

His hand on her shoulder stilled her movements as she picked up her satchel. "Wait, I'll walk you back to your dormitory."

"It's all right," she said hastily, backing toward the door.

"No, it's late and no one's around, I'll walk you."

She couldn't do much other than nod and let him join her, and they descended the stairs out of the library without further conversation. Once they were outside, however, he nudged her with his shoulder and said, "There's something I've always wanted to ask . . ."

"Go ahead," she replied with some trepidation.

"Your father's position - it's inherited?"

"That's right."

"Then why is Nessa due to inherit, instead of you?" She didn't answer immediately, and he added, "Unless second daughters are particularly revered in Munchkinland."

She ducked her head slightly. "Only in our house."

"But why . . ."

"You're honestly asking me that question? Really?"

His fingers took hold of her hand for just a second, in a gesture she suspected was unconscious. "But - I'm sorry if this is rude, but how is a Governor who can't walk preferable to one who's a little . . . unusual looking?"

"Nessa will be a fine Governor," Elphaba replied, feeling as though she ought to defend her sister's merit. "She's very clever, and her mobility shouldn't be so much of a problem."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

She looked up at him with a smile that she hoped was casual and uncaring. "Fiyero, Nessa is our father's daughter. I am his mistake - an obscenity that never should have been created. Nothing has ever changed his view on that point, and nothing is likely to." She shook her head against whatever he might have been going to say. "Anyway it's all moot now - I will be in the Emerald City with the Wizard, and Glinda, and Nessa will be Governor. It's all very simple."

"It's not really that simple," he said, but Elphaba was distracted. She stopped him with an arm thrust out to block his forward motion and pointed ahead to the shell of the building that had once housed Shiz's Animal faculty. No one had gone near the place since it had been blown up - in fact, it was at least nominally a crime scene and the guards had forbidden trespass - but now there was a light moving in one of the blown-out windows.

"Look," Elphaba said, suddenly feeling the need to whisper. "See that?"

"I see it," he whispered back. "Why are we whispering?"

"What do you think they're looking for?" she asked, ignoring the question.

"Probably a warm place to sleep," he opined, starting to walk again. "I'm sure it's just vagrants."

"Vagrants wouldn't be trying to sleep on the third floor," she hissed, pulling him to a stop. "It's unstable. No one would go up there unless they were looking for something specific."

"I think you're giving vagrants too much credit," he muttered, but he let her pull him toward a cluster of trees located closer to the building.

The silhouette of the intruder in the ruined building shifted, and it was now clear that he or she was chipping or hacking at something in the room. "See?" Elphaba whispered, ducking behind one of the trees and hoping Fiyero had enough sense to hide as well. "What is that, a wall safe?"

"A desk, I think." His voice came from just over her shoulder, and she could feel his warmth close behind her back.

"So you agree they're looking for something?" she asked, trying to control the sudden shaking in her voice.

"I guess."

"What if Doctor Dillamond left papers behind?" she asked, the idea blinding her with its obviousness.

"Don't you think the guards would have taken them when he was arrested?"

"Not if they were hidden." She squinted, trying to make out any details of the mysterious figure in the window. "And maybe this person knows where they are."

"Wouldn't need to be papers, then." Fiyero's tone sounded reluctant, as if he were afraid to draw them both further into the mystery. "It could be anything he had hidden. Or any of the previous Animal teachers, for that matter - the ones we didn't even know."

Elphaba nodded, reaching a decision. She pushed herself away from the tree and whispered, "I'm going to go see who it is."

"Are you crazy? What excuse are you going to give for going in there?"

She shrugged. "I thought someone was trying to break in?"

"And you decided to go in yourself instead of calling the guards? Be serious, Elphaba - we don't know who that is, they could be dangerous."

Elphaba laughed, hoping again that it managed to come off as casual. "What do I have to lose?"

"Are you kidding me?" His hand clamped bruisingly over her wrist and he pulled her further back into the shadows. "Even if I'm willing to accept that you don't care about your own safety - which I'm not, by the way - who do you think will get hurt if you get in trouble? Your sister? Glinda? Unless you don't care about them, either."

Surprise hit her harder than offense - surprise at his vehement tone, coupled with the fact that he had dragged her too close to him. She wanted to be furious, but her reaction to his touch wouldn't let her. The energy she might have had drained from her voice, and she said only, "You know that's not true."

"Then _think_, would you?" His head jerked up, and he nodded at something behind her. "No need now, anyway. They're coming out."

She spun around in the dark, somewhat hampered by his iron grip on her wrist. "Did they get anything?" she asked.

"I couldn't see. We should be able to see them in a moment."

They waited in tense silence, both peering into the gloom ahead. After a while a shadowy figure, now without lantern, crept from the building and slipped away across the lawns. In the moonlight Elphaba could make out that it seemed to be a woman's shape, and whoever it was clutched a large knapsack under one arm. The figure raced toward the faculty offices, then took a sharp turn around the history building. "I couldn't tell who it was," she said softly.

"I could," Fiyero said behind her. "It was Professor Roka - she teaches my political science class." He tugged on her wrist until she turned to face him. "So what does that mean?"

"The only thing it means for sure is that she's interested in something left behind by one of the Animal professors."

"But what do you think it means? You must have an idea, you look positively horrified."

"At worst," Elphaba said slowly, "it means she's in league with the Palace and you can't trust her."

"Glad I didn't ask _her_ to help me get out of being married, then," Fiyero muttered. "The thought did occur to me. But why is that so bad?"

"It's bad if it means the Wizard has more spies among the faculty," she said, cursing the fact that he was still holding on to her. She wanted to talk about this, she wanted to continue their argument from earlier, she _wanted_ to run away, but she was stopped by the heat, the wretched thrill of desire that took over her every time he moved his fingers on her wrist. She looked up at him and begged quietly, "Let go, Fiyero, please."

He looked stricken, and immediately released his hold on her wrist. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, I forgot - come on, I'll walk you home. Glinda will be wondering where you are."

They separated in silence, but she thought she heard him whisper, as he turned away to gather his things from where he had dropped them, "I can't let this go on."


	12. Chapter 11

_Sorry for the length of time between updates - it will all go much faster now. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and commenting!  
_

**Elphaba**

By the time Elphaba reached the room she shared with Glinda that night, her heart was pounding and she felt as though her face must be on fire. It was all too much: another professor rummaging in (maybe) Doctor Dillamond's bombed-out rooms, yet another professor almost certainly spying for the Wizard - but spying on whom? - and Fiyero . . . just Fiyero. Not to mention the prospect of returning to the Emerald City, and to the Wizard and Morrible's clutches, in barely a week's time. Last time she had managed to be brave long enough to keep herself and Glinda safe - for the time being - but the trip had ended with her in a near-catatonic state and Glinda needing to fend for both of them. And she was still faced with the decision of whether, or when, to tell Glinda the whole truth about her last conversation with the Wizard.

When she opened the door to their room, Glinda was settled comfortably on the floor in front of the fireplace, with the light dancing across her face and setting her hair aglow. She looked up when Elphaba entered, but her face was still set in a frown of confusion that had presumably been directed at the sorcery text that lay before her on the floor. Her hair hung straight and surprisingly unadorned over her shoulders, and pale fingers twisted a quill with studied concentration. She was so lovely, and she was trying so hard, and Elphaba's mind was still so riddled with confusion and doubt and truly awkward thoughts that she would have preferred to forget entirely, that she simply dropped straight to the floor and threw her arms tightly around Glinda.

Glinda returned the embrace immediately, murmuring without real complaint, "You're so _cold_, Elphie." But she pulled back after a moment and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"No. Yes." Elphaba settled back on her heels and slipped her cloak from her shoulders. There was at least one part of the evening's events that she could and should share with Glinda, anyway. "I saw -" No; honesty (as far as possible, anyway) was likely to avoid trouble later. "Fiyero walked me back from the library, and we saw someone trying to break in to one of the old Animal faculty apartments. He said it was his political science professor." She looked at Glinda carefully, but her friend seemed to have had little reaction to the mention of Fiyero. "I think there are more spies among the faculty - more than just Morrible, I mean."

Glinda closed her book slowly, using the quill to mark her place. "I suppose we could have predicted that, especially with Morrible gone. We've never really settled whether Madame Greyling is likely to be on _their_ side."

"I know. It's just . . . it's worse, somehow, thinking that we can't trust anyone even here."

Elphaba had shivered as she spoke, and Glinda reached for a blanket and tucked it around her shoulders. "Here, it's cold to be out so late," she said. "So Fiyero was at the library again? I wondered."

"I think his project is finished now," Elphaba said. She knew she should stop talking, but the words kept coming at a pace she knew must have sounded nervous. "I saw him as he was leaving and he insisted on walking back with me, because it was so late. That's when we saw Professor Roka and he recognized her; I wouldn't have."

"That was nice of him," Glinda said mildly. "To walk you back I mean, not the recognizing his professor. Although no doubt _that's_ the part you appreciated, if I know you at all."

"No doubt," Elphaba echoed.

Glinda leaned over and patted her hand. "Maybe you should go to bed, Elphie. You're not looking so well."

Elphaba was tempted to take the escape offered, but she shook her head and said, "No, I can stay up and help you study. I could use some more work myself." Glinda reopened her sorcery text with a pleased sort of noise, and Elphaba forced herself to forget about Animals and Fiyero and everything else for long enough to help her master a fire spell. It had become one of the great ironies of their academic lives that Glinda could set things on fire only when she was trying to do something else.

By the time they had to leave for the Emerald City Glinda had learned to create fire without using her wand (in this particular situation, using it actually seemed to make matters worse) and had only burned one of her hands - the left - and that not too badly. The night before their departure they stayed up late practicing spells, mostly because neither of them could face the idea of sleep until they had thoroughly exhausted themselves. Elphaba knew, as well, that Glinda's injured hand was bothering her. She also didn't need the overwhelming sense of deja vu to know that neither of those things was the reason for Glinda's pallor and her tense silence. Their train was about to leave, and Fiyero wasn't there.

Elphaba of course had no intention of mentioning either his absence or Glinda's reaction to it. Instead she did a very Glinda thing: she sank down onto a bench and buried her face in her hands.

"Oh, Elphie," Glinda said immediately, and predictably, picking her way over and around their luggage to sit beside her and wrap an arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry, we'll be fine. Are you getting nervous again?" Glinda sounded almost as grateful for the distraction as Elphaba was to have provided it.

Elphaba's anxiety was of course not entirely feigned, and she leaned her head momentarily on Glinda's shoulder with real appreciation for the comfort she offered. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sure it will be fine."

A hand, heavier than Glinda's, descended on her shoulder as she spoke and she twisted around to see Fiyero standing over them, his other hand on Glinda's shoulder. "I'm glad I caught you," he said.

Glinda shrugged off his hand and stood, primly smoothing the front of her dress. "In another minute we would have left," she said quietly.

"Then it's a good thing I didn't miss you," Fiyero replied, his expression not quite matching the studied casual tone. "I wanted to make sure I said good luck, to both of you."

To Elphaba's mind "both of you" was a misstep, and certainly it didn't seem to melt any of the ice in Glinda's eyes. Suddenly being on a train to the Emerald City didn't seem like such an awful idea. Elphaba patted Fiyero's elbow awkwardly and said, "Thanks very much. Glinda, I'll just go and get us a compartment." She picked up her suitcase and escaped hurriedly in the direction of the train - then, too slow, remembered Glinda's sore hand and her two suitcases. She dashed back to the bench, where Glinda and Fiyero were still facing off in a rather stony silence. Elphaba whispered, "Excuse me," grabbed the larger of Glinda's suitcases in her free hand, and bolted back to the relative safety of the train.

Glinda joined her as the conductor was beginning to hurry the last passengers onto the train, sliding into their compartment and dropping her suitcase onto the empty bench. She sank down onto her seat and leaned her head on Elphaba's shoulder, asking miserably, "Did you see?"

If Glinda was asking her opinion, the time to pretend everything was all right had passed. Elphaba took Glinda's hand in hers and said, "Things seemed a little tense."

"It's more than tense. Tense would be a relief." Glinda turned her face into Elphaba's shoulder, poking it halfheartedly with one finger. "Bony."

"Can't help that."

"I know." Glinda shifted until she had found a more comfortable position. "I just don't know what to do, Elphie. It's - one minute everything's fine, and the next minute it's like he can't get away from me fast enough, and I just wonder . . ."

"What?" Elphaba asked after waiting in vain for Glinda to continue. Beneath them the train's wheels began to clack their way toward the Emerald City.

"If he's just pretending, all those times he seems to want to be with me. Sometimes he just doesn't seem to feel anything at all - we're so perfect for each other, but what if that isn't enough?"

"I don't know," Elphaba replied. "I wish I did."

"We're moving," Glinda commented unnecessarily, turning her head to watch the trees begin to roll by. Her hand tightened in Elphaba's, and she added, "I didn't mean to forget all about you. Still nervous?"

"Yes. You?"

"Yes." She sighed. "At least fussing with Fiyero got me on the train."

"So here we go again."

"Off to see the Wizard."

"And Morrible. And the Palace guards." Elphaba knew her tone had betrayed her, and she was right.

"They must frighten you," Glinda said, stroking her thumb over Elphaba's hand.

"They do."

Glinda turned so that she could put both arms around Elphaba, and pressed a hard kiss to her temple. "I'm here," she said softly.

"I'm glad," Elphaba replied when she felt capable of speaking.

**Glinda**

The streets and streets of green made little impression on her this time - possibly because she was busy worrying about the very unhealthy shade of green Elphaba had turned as they were pulling into the Emerald City station, or possibly because she was distracted by the squadron of guards sent to escort them to their hotel. They had come with a carriage for the girls, and without the large weapons carried by the guards inside the Palace; but their presence was disturbing enough regardless, and Glinda spent most of the trip to the hotel trying to swallow her own fear and keep Elphaba from fainting - an eventuality that seemed more and more likely the longer they were in the presence of the guards.

This time their hotel room provided little relief from the general verdigris of the City (although it did, fortunately, provide significant relief from the guards, who left them at the door). The furnishings were just as green as everything else with the exception of the bath, which was a refreshing shade of creamy marble. "I'm already thinking of just moving into the bathroom," Glinda joked weakly as she and Elphaba pulled their suitcases into the room.

"I think that sounds like a very sensible idea." Elphaba both looked and sounded wan, but some of the color - a color which, incidentally, matched the stripes on the wallpaper - was returning to her face.

"Just one bed again," Glinda mused, running her hands over the duvet. "Not that it matters, it's giant enough. Odd though." Strangely, Elphaba now seemed to have rather too much color. "Elphie? Something wrong?"

"No," Elphaba said quickly, in a way that strongly suggested she was lying. "How's your hand?"

"A little sore still." It throbbed, actually, but she saw no need to worry Elphaba. "I'll put some of that salve on it later. How long until we have to be at the Palace?"

"Not long." Their instructions had been delivered by the guards on a sickly-green scroll, which Elphaba still had clutched in her hands. "Are you hungry?"

"Not in the least."

"Me either." She sat down on the bed, finally setting the scroll down beside her.

"Feeling brave?" Glinda asked, pausing midway through opening her suitcase to hang up her clothes.

"The truth?" Elphaba looked up at her with her brow furrowed. "Not really."

Brave or not, they arrived at the doors to the Palace at the appointed time, holding tightly to each other's hands. The guard at the gate took one look at the scroll they carried - and, more likely, at Elphaba's easily recognizable face - and summoned a superior who escorted them at a punishing pace to the Wizard's throne room. This time when they entered there was no fanfare, no proclamations or questions booming from the giant golden head suspended over the throne. Today it hung motionless, and all was silent until the door had closed behind the two girls. Then the Wizard himself dared to emerge from behind his throne, looking just as Glinda remembered him in his neat suit and small spectacles. She held tighter to Elphaba's hand with both of her own.

"Well, girls!" The Wizard's tone was friendly, but Glinda knew better than to trust his temper. She had seen it turn quickly enough. "I hope your trip was pleasant."

Elphaba seemed disinclined, or perhaps unable, to answer, and the Wizard's eyes were flickering between them expectantly, so Glinda finally murmured, "Yes, thank you, your Ozness." In the cavernous throne room her words seemed to disappear into the air as soon as she had uttered them, but the Wizard appeared to be satisfied.

"I'm sure you're curious about your time here," he continued, "but there's nothing to be nervous about. You'll remember that your old headmistress is here - she's eager to see how far you've progressed in your sorcery studies with your new teacher. Elphaba," he said, turning his attention to her in a way that truly did seem a little bit fond, "have you made any progress with the book?"

Elphaba didn't react physically, and when she spoke her voice was even. Of course, they had predicted that the Wizard must know she had the Grimmerie. "A bit," she said.

"And Glinda?" The Wizard was asking Elphaba still, not Glinda herself. "Any progress, under your guidance?"

Now Elphaba did react with a tensing of all her muscles, which Glinda didn't understand. "Yes, some," she replied, still keeping her voice under tight control.

The Wizard clapped his hands together. "Good, good. I'm glad to hear you're still working so well as a team, eh? Madame Morrible will be delighted. Let me just call her." He disappeared behind the giant throne for a moment, still talking to them as he pitched his voice loud enough to be heard. "We'll have you back to your hotel in no time tonight, ladies. Just wanted to make sure you arrived as scheduled and with no difficulties - of course, Madame will want to decide how early she'd like to see you tomorrow." With a barely audible creak a door opened somewhere at the back of the room, and the Wizard exclaimed, "Ah, Madame Morrible."

Their old headmistress slid into the room with the suavity of a lizard, her eyes trained hard on Elphaba. "Welcome back, ladies," she drawled, her gaze momentarily turning to acknowledge Glinda. "We're so happy to see you."

"That's right, that's right." If the Wizard was aware of the tension Morrible's entrance had added to the room, his tone didn't give it away. "The girls have been telling me about their progress with _the book_."

"Excellent. I'll look forward to testing you both thoroughly tomorrow." Her back to the Wizard, Madame Morrible's expression had shifted to one of deep concentration, as if she were trying to divine something merely by staring at Glinda and Elphaba - mostly Elphaba. Suddenly a wave of something washed over Glinda - the closest name she could put to it was revulsion, but it was a peculiarly sexual revulsion - not the fear she had felt when those unfamiliar boys had been holding her captive, but the feeling of standing too close to a leering man who was unattractive to the point of disgust. Glancing at Elphaba, she saw that her friend's color was heightened again; only a split second later, Elphaba released Glinda's hand emphatically and took a step away from her. The rejection would have stung more but for Elphaba's quick look of confusion mixed with reassurance - _I don't know what's happening, but it will be all right_ - sent her way.

Morrible's eyes narrowed and she seemed dissatisfied with what she saw, but she gave no indication of what it all meant. "Well," she said finally, "Miss Elphaba. Miss Glinda. I suppose it's time to send you off to bed. I'll be seeing you bright and early in the morning." She focused one last time on Elphaba. "Bring the Grimmerie. I don't suppose you left it in your dormitory."

"No, I didn't," Elphaba replied. Her voice was shaky, and Glinda wondered whether she too had felt that - _something_ that had come over her, and whether it had affected Elphaba more strongly.

"Excellent," Madame Morrible purred. "Then you may go, ladies. Do have a pleasant evening."

Elphaba stood frozen until the Wizard had also nodded that they were dismissed, and turned his back to return to his hiding place. Then Elphaba whirled around like a sudden cyclone, gripped Glinda's hand, and practically dragged her the length of the room and back into the hallway.

"Did you -" Glinda started to ask, but Elphaba cut her off.

"_Not here_," she hissed, pulling Glinda through the maze of corridors back to the entrance of the Palace.

"What difference does it make if they're likely to be spying on our room anyway?" Glinda asked rhetorically. She knew of course that Elphaba was right, but she was also feeling slightly cross, and entitled to her crossness, because Elphaba was beginning to hurt her shoulder with all this tugging.

When they were outside, in the less than half a block they had to walk before they reached their hotel again, Glinda whispered, "Did you feel that?"

"In there, with Morrible? Yes." Elphaba was speaking in crisp, curt syllables, a sure sign that she was about to get either angry or terribly depressed.

"What was it?"

"A spell."

"Well, obviously." She pulled back on Elphaba's hand, trying to slow her down. "But what was the point of it?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure it worked." Elphaba relented and stopped walking altogether, turning to face Glinda in the middle of the sidewalk. "Listen, Glinda - I should explain -" She paused and rubbed a hand over her face. "No, never mind. Let's go." She started walking again, and Glinda had to scurry to catch up.

"Explain what, Elphie?"

"Nothing, I just - I think -" Elphaba slowed down just enough to allow Glinda to match her stride comfortably. "I think she was trying to . . . manipulate us in some way, and I don't think it worked the way she wanted it to. That's all."

"Oh." Glinda pondered that as they entered the hotel and crossed the emerald-and-marble lobby toward the stairs. "I'm glad, then, because I can't imagine why she would have wanted to make me feel like _that_."

"If you felt the same as I did, I agree with you." Elphaba drew from her pocket the elaborate iron key they had been given for their room. "That's why I think it didn't work. But what she _was_ trying to do . . ."

Not only did Elphaba not finish her sentence; she didn't speak again at all until she was settled in bed and Glinda had crawled in beside her. They lay for a while side by side in the large, admittedly comfortable bed - Glinda couldn't complain about the luxury of the hotel, at any rate - while Glinda tried to put her finger on exactly how she had felt in the throne room, and what it had to do with Morrible, and how it was connected to the way she had felt when Elphaba had moved so abruptly away from her . . . but it was all growing slightly foggy in her mind, images mixing together in a strange haze. In the end she turned on her side and slid closer to Elphaba, tangling their fingers together under the sheets and resting her head near Elphaba's shoulder. "Anyway, we're still alive and one day down," she whispered. "'Night, Elphie."

"Goodnight," Elphaba finally whispered in response. Her head on the pillow didn't turn, but Glinda felt the answering clasp of her fingers.


	13. Chapter 12

_Thanks again to all reviewers. Here's the next bit!_

**Glinda**

Madame Morrible greeted Glinda and Elphaba the next morning with a smile as predatory as it was false. "Well, dears," she purred as they stepped hesitantly into a small private chamber in one of the towers, "did you have a good night's rest?"

Elphaba, as usual, chose not to answer. This time - after her customary useless glance to her roommate for guidance - Glinda opted not to respond either. They both regarded Morrible in a cautious silence, both - for Glinda imagined that Elphaba _had_ to feel the same as she did - fearing the moment when the mask of pleasantry must drop and the witch beneath be revealed.

"Elphaba," Morrible said, oozing her way a few inches closer to her, "you did bring the book?"

Visibly fighting not to show her reluctance, Elphaba reached into her satchel and withdrew the Grimmerie. It might have been Glinda's imagination, but it seemed that in this hostile environment the book's power in Elphaba's hands was magnified - it seemed to make the air itself crackle. The hairs on the back of Glinda's neck all stood on end as Morrible reached out and took the book from Elphaba.

"Lovely," Morrible murmured to herself, her eyes fixed greedily on the book's worn leather binding. One thick hand stroked over the letters on the front cover as if she were trying to read them through her fingertips. "Oh, girls," she said, sounding as though she were speaking more to herself than to them, "I don't know if you will ever feel, if you will ever _sense_, the delicious power that infuses every page of this book - perhaps once you have developed your skills -" her eyes levelled on Glinda "- such as they are."

Glinda willed herself not to flinch as Morrible stepped closer to her, much too close for comfort, wielding the Grimmerie in front of her like a talisman. As she looked unwillingly into the older woman's eyes, she felt again a wave of sensation, similar to the one the day before, slipping its way over her body. This experience was slightly different, however, in that the feeling of revulsion, of repulsion, was not nearly as strong - nor was the sensation itself. Glinda felt rather as if she were being explored, tested, sensed, rather than deliberately overcome. A glance at Elphaba's expression, which was merely curious and a bit suspicious, suggested to Glinda that she was not experiencing the same sensation; that for some reason it was reserved for Glinda alone. That realization made her more nervous than the feeling itself did.

"Glinda, _dear_," Morrible said, stepping away again. As soon as she did, Glinda felt released from whatever had come over her. "Why don't we see how far you've come, hmm? When I last saw you in class - well, we won't talk about that now. I imagine Elphaba has been . . . opening your mind considerably, in my absence."

Glinda couldn't understand why Elphaba seemed to bristle so at such a simple statement. True, Morrible's syrupy-false tones were deeply unpleasant - if she had been less frightened, Glinda would have said "annoying" - but there seemed to be no specific reason for Elphaba to have gone so much tenser. After all, she _had_ been helping Glinda with her spellwork and they _had_ wanted Morrible to know it - hadn't they?

"Your wand, Glinda," Morrible prompted.

Glinda put her hand into the pocket of her dress and slowly withdrew the spindly training wand. She held it out uncertainly before her, waiting for further instructions.

Morrible removed, with exaggerated care, a blue jewelled brooch from the bosom of her gown and placed it on the room's lone table. "We already know Elphaba's facility with the levitation spell," she simpered, seemingly enjoying Elphaba's stiffened reaction. "But why don't we see how your practice has been progressing?" With a look of false concern she added in Elphaba's direction, "We may wish to step back, in case I cannot immediately address any little accidents." Elphaba only stood her ground and offered Glinda an encouraging look, which made her feel a bit better.

Concentrating as hard as she could on the memorized words of the ancient levitation spell from the Grimmerie, Glinda extended her wand in a shaking hand over the brooch. She clenched her teeth to keep her mouth from forming the words, determined to do this the hard way or not at all, and glared until the brooch began to rise from the table and hovered more or less steadily in midair.

She registered Elphaba's little sigh of relief behind her, and concentrated on carefully lowering the brooch back to the tabletop before she allowed herself to turn and look at Morrible.

The expression of shock on the woman's face was not terribly flattering, but she soon covered it with a simpering smile and a broad laugh. "Well," she said, "it seems Miss Elphaba must be _quite_ the teacher after all."

Glinda's eyes locked with Elphaba's, and she saw again that sort of confused nervousness that Elphie had been giving off all day. Seething beneath it, though, was an anger that was beginning to make itself visible. Glinda truly did not understand, but she suddenly sensed what Elphaba would like her to do. She turned to Madame Morrible and smiled.

"I've learned to do some spells without the wand, too," she said, striving for the once-so-easy tone of an innocent student hoping - and fully expecting - to please her teacher. "Would you like me to show you?"

Glinda had only ever managed one spell entirely without her wand, and Elphaba knew it. Behind Morrible's back she nodded and mouthed something that might have been, "Be careful."

Glinda wasn't feeling very careful. At Morrible's skeptical but broadly beaming nod, she held out both hands and screwed up her concentration, willing herself to feel the power that Elphaba must feel when her magic was working - a rush, a thrumming, a buzzing of strength and adrenaline and something she couldn't name - she closed her eyes without consciously meaning to do so, held her hands as if cupping a large sphere, and _threw_.

The surge of heat past her hands told her that _something_ at least had happened; Morrible's gasp told her that her spell had most likely been successful; and the fresh surge of heat on her face told her it had been more successful than she ever could have dreamed - it had, perhaps, even been _strong_. Glinda opened her eyes and gasped. She had created a magical fireball so strong that it hadn't yet burned itself out, but rather had sent up a whole column of flame where it landed. Just as it ought, the magical fire burned without scorching the floor, but its heat and light were impressive and, best of all, Morrible looked afraid. _Afraid_, of Glinda. Elphaba, although clearly a bit shaken herself, was beaming.

Morrible coughed once, then waved her hands and made the fire vanish. "Well," she said, "it's very informative to see what you can do when you bother to focus, Glinda." Before Glinda could manage a retort, Morrible turned to Elphaba and said, "I wouldn't want to forget, Elphaba - the Wizard wanted to see you by yourself today. You might run along and see him now. I think Glinda and I will be all right on our own for a while."

A sudden jolt of fear shot through Glinda, and she wasn't sure whether she was afraid for herself all alone with Morrible, or for Elphaba sent to deal with the Wizard alone - or both. Elphaba looked desperately at her, but Morrible said with an iron command, "Go on, now. He'll be waiting for you."

With one last look over her shoulder, Elphaba went.

**Elphaba**

When Elphaba entered the throne room she expected the usual mess - booming false voice shouting all sorts of ridiculous things, golden head dancing disembodied on its throne. Instead she found silence and a stilled mask, and a thin voice calling, "If that's not Elphaba, my guards are all fired."

To that Elphaba wasn't sure what she was supposed to say, so she cleared her throat, walking closer, and called, "It's me."

"Oh, good." The Wizard's head poked out from behind the throne, soon followed by the rest of him. "I've been waiting."

"Oh." She just didn't know what else to say to that.

"So. Elphaba. Here we are." He sat casually on the stairs in front of his throne, surveying her with his chin propped on one hand.

"Y - Yes." She licked her lips nervously. "Was there something in particular you wanted?"

"Just to talk." He spread his hands, a down-home Munchkinland politician, or a fair imitation of one. "Without an audience."

"All right." She smoothed her hands over her skirt, hating the shaking she could feel in them. "About what?"

"Anything." He patted the marble stair beside him. "Come, sit."

Feeling every bit the awkward schoolgirl that she was, instead of the witch she was supposed to be, she crossed the remaining distance to the throne and settled onto a stair, not too near him.

"There we are," he said. "Now. You don't have any questions for me, anything you'd like to discuss? Anything you'd like to know, about your future?"

Elphaba swallowed. "All right. I do have a question."

"Go ahead."

"How many spies do you have on the faculty at Shiz?"

His eyes darkened, brows knitting together. "You're a clever girl, Elphaba," he said, "but a bit lacking in subtlety."

"Subtlety isn't exactly given to me by nature," she pointed out.

"You make too much of that skin of yours, I think," he bit back. "You remind me of someone, you know. You're all thorn and bristle, but deep down you really just want someone to understand." He peered at her as if studying her face. "Yes, you look like someone I know - someone I once knew."

"Who?" she asked, curious in spite of herself.

"I couldn't tell you," he replied. "Can't put my finger on it. Someone though - the eyes especially - and that particular look in them, the one that says you're just so misunderstood."

"You didn't answer my question," she said, feeling herself bristling even as he spoke.

"As many as I need, my girl," he said. "As many as I need."

Elphaba leaned back. "And one of them found something in the Animal faculty housing the other week, didn't they?"

He leaned toward her as if in response to her posture. "How do you know about that?"

"I'm clever," she snapped.

"How's Glinda?" he drawled, still leaning into her.

"Don't do that, I don't believe you anyway," she said.

"Whatever do you mean?"

She took a breath, took a chance. "You like to insinuate you'd hurt her to get to me, but I don't quite believe you would."

He looked affronted, a grandfather crossed by his favorite grandchild. "You're right about that, and wrong about what I'm insinuating, if anything."

"Sure."

"Elphaba." He laid one hand on the stair closer to her. "There is one thing I wanted to say. I was - shocked, and saddened, to hear about Glinda's - trouble. I hope you feel it was handled adequately."

He almost seemed sincere. She shrugged. "Just about. But it's not my opinion that matters, you know. I'm curious why you haven't wanted to talk to _her_ about it."

"My dear girl." He sat back now, leaning his weight on his elbows awkwardly. "Glinda is a lovely girl, and I'm sure she's very sweet. Certainly she's charming. But she's - show."

"She's more than that," Elphaba interrupted harshly. "She's better than that."

"I'm sure," he said easily. "I only meant - better to leave her training, and her handling, to my Press Secretary."

"_Handling_? She's not a horse."

"Not handling. Guiding. Shepherding, if you'll allow. After all, you can't deny that she needs more training in sorcery, talent and interest aside." He smiled, as if expecting Elphaba to understand, to agree, fully. "You have to see, Elphaba, she and I have nothing in common. You and I, we can talk on the level. I wouldn't have the first idea how to handle Glinda, nor she me. You must agree."

Elphaba's stomach sank guiltily, because she did, just a little.

"In fact," he continued, "I've sort of been wondering since you left - how on earth _do_ you handle her? If you'll permit the word," he added hastily.

"I don't," Elphaba said absently, distractedly, emptily. "She handles me."

"She _is_ astonishingly pretty."

Elphaba felt her face heating up unbearably. She tried, one last time, to distract him. "You think that's all she is, no matter what I say."

"That's not true, Elphaba. But I understand you, I think, and I want to understand you better. We're alike, you and I. And that makes Glinda - other. An effect. A cause. Something to be reacted to, not understood."

"I think," Elphaba said slowly and carefully, "it's dangerous to see people that way."

"_Dangerous_, Elphaba?"

"It turns people into things," she said. "Effects. Causes. Means. Not people."

"You're on the animals again."

"_Animals._"

"Forgive me," he said mildly. "Your Ozian accents are so difficult to master."

"I'm sure."

"Look." He placed a hand over one of hers, and she fought to keep from pulling it away. "I like you, Elphaba. If I had had a daughter back in Kansas - well, I highly doubt she would have been green, but other than that - I imagine she might have been something like you. I want you to be happy. And if you want Glinda, then I want her safe. Isn't that enough?" He pressed her hand. "For now?"

"You want me to be happy?" was all she could say. "Is that what you wanted when you sent your soldiers after me?"

"I can't be expected to accept everything," he said slowly.

Their eyes met and locked; she paused. "No. Of course," she said after a moment. "I understand."

"Do you? Good." He nodded toward the door. "Go and join Glinda; I've heard tell she might set my Palace on fire without your supervision."

Halfway to the door Elphaba turned around, an idea fresh in her mind. "If you want to understand me," she said, "you'll learn to appreciate Glinda."

"No doubt," the Wizard replied softly. "No doubt."

Once out in the hall, Elphaba sank down onto the floor in relief, resting her back against the wall. She let the tension flow out of her body, and pressed both hands over her heart, willing it to slow.


	14. Chapter 13

_Thank you very much, again, to everyone who's been reading and commenting!  
_

**Elphaba**

It took Elphaba several moments to figure out what had woken her, particularly because she was reluctant to open her eyes. She finally forced them open when she heard once again the rustling of paper and the creaking of a chair across the room. The flickering light of one small lamp illuminated Glinda sitting at the room's mostly ornamental desk, frowning over an assortment of notes spread in seeming disarray. She had pulled her hair back from her face and her skin was pale, with deep shadows around her eyes. The effect was uncanny, with the green walls around her dancing half in light, half in shadow and Glinda's gold hair glowing in the midst of it.

"Glinda," Elphaba murmured, pulling herself to a sitting position and trying to keep the blanket tucked as high around her as she could. "What are you doing?"

"Studying," Glinda said, not looking at her.

"In the middle of the night?" With a sigh Elphaba slid from the warm bed and crossed to Glinda's side, arms wrapped tightly around herself in the chilly nighttime air.

"I have to learn this enchantment before I forget everything Morrible said about it," Glinda insisted, shuffling the papers to a new order that seemed to make sense to her.

They had spent the day - mercifully, their last in the City this visit - in the high tower room with Morrible learning the basics of setting up a joint enchantment, something that allowed them not to combine their power exactly but to layer it, in a way, letting Elphaba's spell work to back up Glinda's, or vice versa. The steps of each spell had to be performed in a specific interwoven order so that they would lock together and reinforce one another, and the order was so seemingly nonsensical that it simply had to be memorized.

"Glinda," Elphaba said gently, "we're leaving first thing in the morning. No one's going to test you anymore; you don't have to learn this right now."

"That's such a very un-Elphaba thing to say that I suspect you're just worried that my fragile self can't handle such work." The tone was dry, but the words didn't sound entirely in jest. "Or is it my frail intellect?"

"Don't be ridiculous please, I'm too tired for it."

At long last Glinda met Elphaba's eyes, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. "I couldn't sleep," she said finally. "I just kept thinking, there has to be a way to make sense of this."

"You didn't understand it?" Elphaba insinuated herself onto one side of Glinda's chair, letting Glinda adjust to make room for her. "You did it perfectly the last time we tried."

"I know." Glinda frowned a moment as if deciding whether to continue. "It just seems - it can't really be that the order of the steps makes no sense, or it shouldn't matter what the order is. I think there _is_ a rhyme and reason for why the enchantment is built the way it is . . ."

"You think Morrible doesn't know the reason?" Elphaba interrupted. "I wouldn't be surprised."

"No, I think Morrible doesn't want _us_ to know the reason." Glinda moved her papers around some more, apparently looking for something in particular. She was whispering low, mindful probably of their conversation about being spied on by the Palace. "Because she told us something that isn't true."

"Really? What?"

Glinda found what she was looking for and pointed one neatly manicured finger at a line she had underlined in her notes. "She said it's never possible to fully merge the enchantments - that you can perform a single spell with two casters, which is about one-and-three-quarter times as powerful as the spell performed by one person alone; or you can layer the spells as we did, making the whole enchantment as powerful as two individual spells; but that there's no way to layer them _and_ fully join the layered spells into one."

Elphaba thought carefully, trying to follow Glinda's increasingly excited explanation. "But there is a way?"

"There is. I saw it in a book when I was trying to choose a subject for my university entrance essay."

"How do you do it?"

Glinda turned to face Elphaba, their noses nearly touching. In some discomfort, Elphaba looked down and studied the notes on the table as Glinda talked. "The book didn't explain," Glinda replied. "It's advanced magic that's not even taught at university. But it's supposed to be a 'natural extension' of the method for layering spells. It's like -" She linked her fingers together as a visual aid. "Like building one wall behind another but then cementing them together into one big thick wall."

Glinda's notes swam on the page as Elphaba tried to figure out where she was headed with this. "So," she said slowly, "you think Morrible doesn't want to teach us the reasoning and method behind the process for layering spells, because she doesn't want us to be able to figure out how to do this other thing - to layer and then join them?"

"Exactly," Glinda said. "I bet if we understood how the layering enchantment is set up, we might be able to understand how to merge our layered spells into one - which would be about _four_ times as powerful as one original spell alone, if we did it right."

"And Morrible wouldn't want us to learn how to do that, because we might become too powerful."

"Two of us and one of her," Glinda agreed. "See why I couldn't sleep?"

"Morrible was so careful to explain that she knows how to deconstruct a layered spell," Elphaba thought out loud. "She could undo anything we cast, eventually, if we stuck with that method. But I bet she isn't strong enough to take apart one huge spell at four-times strength."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

_Because I could kiss you for this._ Instead she said, "Because you really are clever, Glinda - really, really clever."

"Not so clever," Glinda sighed. "Knowing what we _could_ do is all well and good, but I haven't managed to figure out _how_ yet."

"We'll figure it out," Elphaba promised. "Together. But not in the middle of the night." Glinda looked about to protest, but Elphaba laid a restraining hand on top of the pile of notes. "There's no rush, and back at school we can research, look in the library - work in our room without worrying about -" Even though they had been whispering all along, she mouthed the last word silently. "- _spies_."

"I guess." Glinda frowned down at Elphaba's hand over her papers, but she couldn't keep back a yawn. Elphaba stood and pulled Glinda out of the chair with her.

"Come on, come back to bed," she murmured.

Once she had allowed herself to be dragged away from her work Glinda became suddenly pliant, not protesting when Elphaba extinguished the lamp and letting Elphaba slide off her heavy dressing gown and prod her back into the bed. Her eyes drifted shut as soon as her head touched the pillow, but she stayed awake long enough to grasp Elphaba's hand as Elphaba climbed into bed beside her. "Promise me," she whispered, "that in the morning you'll remember we talked about this."

"I'll remember," Elphaba promised. "Go to sleep now, or you'll have to go back to school with your eyes all red."

Elphaba lay watchful until she was certain that Glinda had fallen asleep, her hand - cold from being out of bed so late - still wrapped around Elphaba's. Although of course it was impossible, seeing as the entire point of their midnight discussion had been a possible way to outwit Morrible and the Wizard, a small, proud part of Elphaba wished that they _could_ have overheard the conversation. But then, she reminded herself, maybe it was all for the good if they continued to underestimate Glinda. It was a tricky balance to strike - they had to continue to find Glinda valuable enough to keep her safe, to make her important enough to protect; but at the same time it might serve Elphaba and Glinda's purposes if no one ever quite figured out how devious Glinda could be. Her appearance of naivete, of complete innocence - not to mention her appearance of shallow regard for anything _other_ than appearance - could go a long way toward concealing anything that they might get up to.

And the Wizard thought Elphaba couldn't be subtle. Ha. She smiled smugly to herself over the recollection of their last conversation, that afternoon.

"I use magic because I can," she had told him honestly. "As a means to an end. Glinda's interested in sorcery for its own sake - that's why by rights she ought be the better at it, of the two of us."

"But she isn't."

"No." They had been talking on the stairs to the throne again, with the Wizard leaning his back against the bottom of the chair itself and Elphaba's knees pulled nearly to her chest, her long skirt spread modestly over them. "But," she'd added, seeing that the Wizard was only slightly paying attention to her words, "one day she'll _understand_ it much better than I ever will."

**Glinda**

Glinda was exhausted by the time they found a compartment on the train, but she wasn't about to give Elphaba the opportunity to say "I told you so." She hid her yawn as well as she could and remarked blandly, "I hope we're home in time for tea."

"We should be, unless there's a delay." Elphaba helped to lift Glinda's suitcases onto the empty bench along with her own. "And then we'll be just in time for the weekend - plenty of time to rest."

"Or go to the library?"

Elphaba's eyebrow arched over the rim of her eyeglasses, which she was wearing presumably in hopes of having the chance to read the book she had on her lap. "Are you teasing me?"

"No, just making sure you remember your promise."

"I remember." Elphaba patted her hand. "It's a brilliant idea and of course we'll work on it."

"Just so you keep that in mind. Especially the part where I was brilliant." Another yawn barely suppressed, but Elphaba noticed.

"How long had you been awake before I got up last night?"

"Don't know." Glinda leaned her head back against the bench, letting her eyes close and thinking about allowing herself to be sleepy. "A while."

"Come on." Elphaba wrapped an arm around Glinda's shoulders and tugged her downward, settling Glinda's head in her lap. "Lie across the bench and try to sleep for a while - no one will come in the compartment with the hideous green girl."

Glinda was too tired to put up much of a fight, and even though this was a definite variety of "I told you so," Elphaba was soothing rather than scolding and it was so easy to drift off in her lap, with her thin fingers idly stroking Glinda's hair.

Glinda hadn't expected Fiyero to meet them at the station, which was lucky because it saved her from being _very_ disappointed when he wasn't there. By the time she and Elphaba had reached their dormitory she had convinced herself - almost - that it didn't matter and that she had more important things to be thinking about. Elphaba wanted to wait till the next day to begin their research on layering spells - which Glinda thought must mean that she was still a bit worried about Glinda's need for rest, because when had Elphaba ever wanted to _wait_ before doing homework? - but Glinda pleaded until Elphaba agreed that they could work for a while, just until tea-time, just long enough to collect some likely volumes for later study. Glinda was desperately thankful for the distraction, and dispatched Elphaba to the library while she herself went to examine some of the rare books kept in the sorcery classroom building.

She was so focused on her task, mentally trying to remember which books exactly she had seen in the little sorcery library, that she didn't hear her name shouted until Fiyero had practically run into her.

"Oh," she said, not entirely able to decide whether she was more pleased or annoyed to encounter him. "Hello."

He stood facing her, several steps of frozen brown lawn away from her, and asked rather stiltedly, "How was the Emerald City?"

"Fine," she replied. "I learned a lot."

"And Elphaba?"

"No one tried to arrest her this time, so - fine too."

"So it wasn't . . ." He shifted from foot to foot nervously. "You were frightened before you went, I think - you and Elphaba. It wasn't too terrible?"

"No," Glinda said absently. Not terrible, but - strange sensations of revulsion at the lust of others - or was it strangely revolted lust? - power flowing through her hands but also _into_ her from somewhere, Morrible's haunting voice, confused nights huddling too close to Elphaba in their shared bed, an incomprehensible tangle that somehow involved Fiyero and herself, or was that a dream? "No," she repeated, her own voice sounding distant even to herself. "Not so terrible, but . . . confusing."

"That's good." He stepped closer and took her arm, and whatever spell had come over her was broken. "Can we talk, for a moment?"

She almost told him that she was on her way somewhere important - to the library, which he wouldn't believe, or to meet someone else, which would be admittedly cruel - but despite the way he had been acting he was still Fiyero and she still missed him, still wanted him, and still would go where he asked her to go. "All right," she said softly.

He led her to the cover of a small grove of trees, somewhere they could not be seen but could see that no one was close enough to listen. He took her hand, facing her, standing closer now, and looking pale. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Glinda," he started. His thumb stroked over the back of her hand, over and over. "I have to - I've been lying to you. And I don't want to lie anymore."

Her heart seemed to stop in her chest as she contemplated all the possible horrible things he could mean. The most obvious was that he had been sneaking around with another girl, but certainly there were other possibilities. "Lying how?" she asked.

His fingers tightened on her hand; she could practically _see_ him thinking. "Well," he said, "when we first met each other - it seemed like fun, didn't it? Us?"

"Fun" wasn't the word she would have used to characterize the way she thought of their relationship, but she nodded. "Sure."

"Here's the thing." He held her hand with both of his now, looking earnestly down at her. "Glinda . . . I love you. I really love you."

It was the most sincere he had ever sounded, but at the same time his words sounded like an apology, and that couldn't be right. "So what's wrong?" she asked.

He looked straight into her eyes, but she could tell he didn't really want to. "I don't love you," he said more softly, "the way you want me to."

She tried to pull her hand away and after a moment he let her, but he took a step forward to counter her step back. "What does that mean?" she asked him.

Fiyero reached out for her, but when she backed away again he mercifully gave up on coming closer. "It means," he said, with the air of someone making a deeply shameful confession, "that I love you more than I ever expected to, but it's not a romantic love, and I care too much to keep lying to you about that."

She felt sick; her mind unwillingly filled with all the things he had said to her, the times he had touched her, kissed her, and how _real_ it had felt. Most of the time. "But . . ." she said.

"I am - attracted to you." He leaned his back against a tree, seeming to need the support. "But - it seems like that isn't enough to turn one kind of love into another kind. I don't know why not; I don't really understand it. But I'm pretty sure about it."

"I -" She nodded slowly, a sick nauseous despairing sort of relief creeping up her spine and bringing tears to her eyes. "So we're over."

"- yes." His hands fidgeted at his sides, reminding her of Elphaba. "Anything else would be wrong."

"Since when do you care?" She tried to laugh, but the wretched tears were beginning to make themselves heard in her voice.

"Since now, I guess." His eyes pierced her. "Is that what you would want - for me to be having fun with you, without caring?"

"Of course not." She felt weary, but there was no tree near enough for her to lean against. "You're - right . . . I see that you're right. Please excuse me, I have to go." She turned and walked deliberately out of the little grove, ignoring his voice calling her name. He would want to make sure that she was all right, and she wasn't ready to grant him that favor.

Her feet steered her toward the dormitory without conscious thought on her part, her previous errand more or less forgotten. She needed to be alone, wanted Elphaba, wanted no one, couldn't go looking for Elphaba in the library where there were other people, so she went back to their room, methodically built up the fire against the chill, calmly kicked off her shoes, stripped down to her shift, and wrapped herself in a blanket by the fire, and then she cried.

An hour at least went by; the darkness of a winter afternoon fell outside and the shadows in the room lengthened. The fire began to die down and she huddled deeper into her blanket, every minute hoping to hear Elphaba's familiar footsteps approaching the door.

When they finally came Glinda looked up, prepared to spill out the whole story - but one glance at her roommate's drawn face made clear that Glinda didn't have to tell her anything.

"Glinda," Elphaba said softly, still standing framed by the doorway.

"Does everyone know already?" Glinda asked in something that came out somehow between a wail and quiet resignation.

"No." Elphaba closed and locked the door behind her and laid her satchel with unusual care on Glinda's bed, dropping a pile of old books beside it. "I saw Fiyero. I think he was looking for me, actually."

"Oh." Glinda's toes were cold; she drew them further under the blanket. "What did he have to say for himself?"

"Not much."

"Oh," Glinda repeated, watching Elphaba build up the fire.

Elphaba settled beside her and started to put her arm around Glinda, then apparently thought better of it and slipped her arm under the blanket instead. A flip of her elbow sent one side of it flying over her shoulders as well, and she pulled Glinda close and tucked the blanket tightly around both of them. Glinda settled her head comfortably over Elphaba's small breasts, her own chest supported by Elphaba's bent knees, and let the new tears well up with indescribable relief that no words seemed necessary.

"Was he awful?" Elphaba whispered after a while. "He seemed so guilty."

"No, he wasn't," Glinda sniffled. She adjusted her position to one slightly more comfortable, and took one of Elphaba's hands and held it to her chest like a life preserver. "That's the hardest thing, Elphie - I know he's right." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He's right and there's no one to blame. I can't convince him to love me."

Elphaba only hugged her closer and whispered quiet things that Glinda couldn't quite hear, but they gave her some comfort anyway.


	15. Chapter 14

**Glinda**

Elphaba didn't say much of anything once Glinda's tears had slowed, simply sitting there and letting Glinda lean against her. After what seemed like a long time Glinda rubbed the back of her hand across her wet eyes and asked quietly, "Did he tell you very much?"

"No," Elphaba replied, seeming a little startled by the sudden noise. "He just said that he had to end it, that it would have been wrong of him not to."

Glinda nodded, feeling the comforting soft brush of Elphaba's sweater against her cheek.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"What he said, that's basically what happened." Glinda gently prodded Elphaba's knees until she stretched her legs out straight and Glinda could lay her head in Elphaba's lap. It was every bit as comforting now as it had been when she was exhausted on the train that morning. "He . . ." She turned toward the fire, her fingers twisting a little in the hem of Elphaba's skirt. "He said he doesn't love me in a romantic way, and he didn't want to lie to me anymore."

"I'm sorry," Elphaba whispered, her fingers running through Glinda's hair. "He looked so upset when I saw him - he said I should go find you right away."

"Thank you for coming."

"As if I wouldn't have." She squeezed Glinda's shoulder. "Hold on, the kitchen gave me something for you - us." She slid herself carefully out from under Glinda, and Glinda sat up in consternation.

"You told the _cooks_?"

"No, I didn't tell them." Elphaba stretched up to retrieve her satchel from the bed. "I just said my roommate was having a very, very bad day. They like me there."

"So what did they give you?"

With a small triumphant smile, Elphaba pulled a bottle out of her satchel and handed it to Glinda. It was a very good Gillikin wine - Glinda didn't know enough to be able to tell if the _year_ was particularly good, but she knew the label. "Did they pull this from the faculty stores?" she asked in awe.

"Probably. They must like you, too."

"They don't even know me." She felt strangely guilty about that, although a month ago the idea that she should present herself in the school kitchen for a conversation with the cooks would have seemed absurd.

"Sure they do. 'Pretty little Miss Galinda,' they said. 'Such a sweet thing.'" Elphaba almost managed not to roll her eyes when she said it.

"I'm not sure I deserve for them to think that."

"Well, maybe you'll write them a nice note." Elphaba took the bottle from her hands and revealed that her satchel also contained a corkscrew. "Anyway, I'm sure half the workers at the university know you're being trained by the Wizard. That makes you special, if they didn't already have a reason to think so."

"You're making a mess of that," Glinda said softly, watching Elphaba struggle with the corkscrew. "Give it to me."

Elphaba gladly passed her the bottle and the corkscrew, which she had been trying somehow to use sideways. "Now I know what the youth of Gillikin get up to," she commented, watching Glinda's more or less deft handling of the implement.

"Half of the youth of Gillikin are more likely just to break the neck of the bottle." Glinda managed a half-smile for her roommate as she held up the neatly extracted cork. "But my parents like a glass with dinner, and my mother thought a lady should know how to serve. Usually of course the cook would open it in the kitchen, but . . ." She shrugged. "I don't suppose you've also got glasses stashed in that bag of yours?"

"No luck. I was worried enough about breaking the bottle."

"In that case we'll be _very_ like the youth of Gillikin." She raised the bottle, declared, "To degeneracy," and took a careful sip.

"All right?"

Glinda swallowed slowly, feeling the liquid start to warm her throat. "All right. Here." She passed the bottle to Elphaba, who took a sip and wrinkled her nose a little as she swallowed. "Up to the standards of Munchkinland?"

"In Munchkinland it's mostly beer." Elphaba held the bottle out and looked at the label. "I never realized wine was so bitter."

"Dry," Glinda corrected gently as Elphaba handed the bottle back. "Sometime we'll try a white wine from Frottica; it's sweeter. You ought to come and visit for break, you know. Or at least part of it."

"Were those two thoughts connected?" Elphaba smiled. "I think I'd like that, if my father would let me. There are plenty of people to look after Nessa at home."

Glinda laid her hand over Elphaba's where it rested on the floor. "Thank you for this."

"Of course." Elphaba turned her hand over so that she could hold Glinda's in return. "Any time."

"Hopefully I won't make a habit of it," Glinda said.

"I'm sure you won't. I'm having a hard time believing even one person was able to let you get away."

"That's how I intend to think of it from now on. A narrow escape." Glinda smiled and found that it actually made her feel a bit better. "You're very sweet to me, Elphie. Are you sure I deserve it?"

"No."

Glinda's laugh surprised herself so much that she set down the wine bottle she was holding and leaned over and kissed Elphaba. Elphaba drew back, looking concerned, but Glinda shook her head and took her friend's hand. "Not because of Fiyero," she assured her. "Just because." She kissed Elphaba again, slowly and carefully, tasting the wine on her mouth and stopping only when she felt Elphaba's hand tentatively touching her face. Elphaba smiled shyly when they parted, then reached out and hugged Glinda tightly.

"You'll feel better?" she asked in a whisper.

"I will," Glinda said. "Eventually."

"Oh!" Elphaba exclaimed suddenly, rising to her knees. "I forgot - I promised - Nessa, that I would come and see her. She had something to talk to me about."

Glinda's forehead furrowed as she watched Elphaba reach for, then reject, her discarded shoes. "It can't wait till the morning?"

Elphaba's face was apologetic. "I promised, you know how she'll fuss. I won't be long, I swear."

"Want me to come with you?" She didn't really want to leave the room, but she didn't much want to be away from Elphaba either.

"No - stay here and stay warm. I'll be back as fast as I can." Elphaba ducked out the door, smoothing one hand over her mussed hair as she went.

**Elphaba**

She hovered in the stairwell on the first floor, watching until the front foyer was clear, then darted from the building and into the shadows. The frozen grass was almost unbearably cold under her bare feet, but she hadn't wanted to make Glinda suspicious - she wouldn't ordinarily have put on her shoes (or, for that matter, her cloak, and so the rest of her was cold as well) just to run down to Nessa's room.

Lights were on in far too many of the rooms in the boys' dormitory - nearly all of them, really - and she ducked behind a tree to count over to the right room, thanking her lucky stars that at least she only had to get to the first floor. The eighth window from the left was nearly dark; it looked as though the occupants had lit only a small lamp back within the recesses of the room. With another quick glance around her to make sure she wasn't seen, Elphaba darted to the side of the building and, crouching down beneath the window ledges, made her way over to her target.

She knocked on the window with a cautious fist, keeping the rest of her tucked below the ledge just in case. She heard the creaking rush of the window being thrust up, and a familiar head poked out - not the one she had expected, but familiar nonetheless.

"Elphaba?" Fiyero's roommate whispered into the darkness.

She looked around nervously and straightened to her full height, leaning as close to the building as possible to take advantage of its shadow. "You're probably wondering what I'm doing hiding under your window," she whispered in response.

"Not really - Fiyero told me he expected you. He had to go and see the monitor for a moment, but he said to let you in if you came while he was gone." Rikk took a step back and extended his hand through the window to her. "Coming?"

"I don't really need to come in," she whispered, shifting from foot to foot to keep the cold off of each as much as possible. "I can just talk to him out here when he gets back."

"Are you sure? You look cold." Rikk glanced down. "Are you not wearing shoes?"

"I told Glinda I was just going downstairs to talk to my sister. If I'd gotten all bundled up . . ."

"Got it." Out of seeming curiosity he asked, "What if she goes to look for you?"

"Then I think fast. Or confess, I suppose." Self-consciously she tried to hide the fact that she was dancing between feet on the cold grass. "I can't believe I agreed to this."

"Me either," Rikk replied genially. "But he really was worried, you know."

"I know."

"Sure you won't come in? I'm completely trustworthy."

"I'm sure you are, but no thanks."

He leaned his elbows on the windowsill and said, as if simply trying to make conversation, "You know, Kiren really liked your sister."

"Did he?"

"You sound skeptical."

"Not really."

"No?"

"All right, yes, skeptical." Her smallest toes were beginning to feel uncomfortably numb. "Not because I don't believe someone would like her, mind."

"You just don't trust Glinda's interference."

"Her motives I trust - this time. It's her results I question." A bobbing light to her left caught her attention, and she ducked closer to the building wall and pointed. "What's that?" she whispered.

Rikk leaned out the window and swore softly. "Patrol," he said. "Haven't you ever seen them before?"

"We're on the third floor and we face a tree, so, no."

"You'd better come in now or they'll catch you." He extended his hand again. "Honestly, Elphaba, they're looking for people breaking curfew. Fiyero should be back any second."

"Well . . ." The bobbing light was coming closer. "All right." She placed her hand in his and propped one foot against the window ledge, using both to lift herself high enough to slide through the window and hop down onto the floor. He surprised her by slowing her fall with both hands on her waist - but then, she supposed at some point she'd have to stop being surprised. After all, he'd only ever been polite to her and, unlike the rest of his classmates, had never shown any reluctance to touch or be near her.

Perhaps he was color-blind. She _had_ once met a color-blind Munchkin farmer who thought she was merely an odd shade of brown.

Rikk stepped away to a respectable distance once she was actually in the room, saying, "You'd better come away from the window and stay out of the lamplight, just in case."

"Right." She ducked into the nearest corner and leaned against the wall. "Where did you say Fiyero had gone?"

Just then the door opened, and Fiyero ducked hastily into the room and shut it behind him. He started to say, "Did El-" and then he noticed her and froze. "Oh. Elphaba." He coughed. "Good, you came in."

"I wasn't planning on it," she said, "but the patrol came by."

"Right."

Rikk stepped between them on a clear path to the door and asked, "Should I leave you . . ."

"No," Elphaba said quickly, holding up a hand to stop him. "I won't be long."

Fiyero spread his hands, taking a few steps closer to her and around his roommate. "So?"

Her eyes flickered over to Rikk, who was watching with benign interest. "She's . . ." _She's fine. She kissed me. She's not at all fine. She will be. I couldn't tell you which of us is more disturbed at the moment, but I'm beginning to think it's me._ "She'll be all right."

"But how is she right now?"

_She's slowly getting drunk and quickly confusing her roommate._ "She's - well, she's upset. You had to know that."

"But you'll - you're . . ." He stepped closer still, unaware that Rikk's gaze had shifted to his back, observing the movement. Elphaba frowned in fresh confusion. "You're taking care of her?" Fiyero finished finally.

She made herself look at him, instead of watching Rikk watch them. "Yes."

"Thank you."

"It's not a favor to you." She wasn't being deliberately unpleasant, just stating a fact.

"I know." He sighed. "Thank you for coming. I would have worried."

"You're welcome," she said quietly. "I'd better get back now; I told her I was just going down to Nessa's."

"Of course."

Rikk, out of some sense of chivalry perhaps, or perhaps he simply felt that he had taken upon himself the responsibility for helping Elphaba navigate the window, stepped to her side again and helped her onto the sill with one hand in hers and the other at the small of her back. She thanked him awkwardly and jumped to the ground, wincing as her feet - which had defrosted slightly in the warm room - touched the grass. The window slid closed, but while she was recovering herself and checking for any observers she distinctly heard Rikk inside the room say something she didn't really understand.

"Great Oz - that's not 'complicated,' my friend; that's a _disaster_."

When she got back to her own room Glinda was staring contemplatively into the fire, swaying the wine bottle from hand to hand with perilous balance. "Nessa all right?" she asked as Elphaba shut the door.

"She's fine. She - got a letter from our father and wanted to tell me what it said."

"Anything interesting?"

"Not to me." She sat down in her former place beside Glinda, subtly stretching her frozen toes toward the warmth of the flames.

Glinda reached over and placed a hand on Elphaba's elbow. "You're cold," she said, rubbing her fingers over the chilled fabric. "Nessa's room must be frigid; didn't she have the fire lit?"

"There's a draft in the stairwell."

"Oh."

Elphaba shifted backward enough that she could lean her back against the end of Glinda's bed. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

Glinda righted the bottle and set it down before her, studying it with seeming interest. "All right," she said. "Not all right. I don't really know."

After a slight hesitation Elphaba held out her arms, and Glinda slid back to settle into them, leaning her head on Elphaba's shoulder. Their hands tangled together over Glinda's stomach, and Elphaba felt more than heard her deep sigh. "Thanks," Glinda said.

"You don't have to thank me." Glinda's hair brushed against Elphaba's cheek as she leaned their heads together. "I'm here." It was fast becoming a mantra of theirs.

Glinda lifted their clasped hands to lay over her heart and whispered, "Thank goodness."


	16. Chapter 15

_As always, thank you for your reviews and for sticking with me!_

**Glinda**

On the morning after Fiyero ended their relationship, Glinda was awake early and spending nearly an hour choosing her clothes for the day. It was a careful balance - she had to look good enough that no one would think anything was wrong, fresh and pretty and bright enough that her classmates would never suspect she had spent half the night before crying in Elphaba's arms - but on the other hand, she also had to avoid drawing extra attention to herself or appearing as if . . . as if she were trying too hard. She was beginning to understand how Elphaba had felt, going to that ball. And when it came right down to it, neither she nor her roommate was very good at not attracting attention.

She was just deciding that she was finally satisfied with herself, smoothing the last neatly (but not ostentatiously, she hoped) arranged curl, when she realized that Elphaba was watching her and probably had been for some time. "Well," she said, looking not at the real Elphaba but at her reflection behind Glinda's in the mirror, "how do I look?"

"Your back looks lovely," Elphaba said from her perch on her bed.

Glinda turned, her exasperation almost entirely feigned. "Well?"

"Perfect."

Glinda frowned and lifted one hand to her cheek. "You mean 'pale,' don't you?"

"Yes," Elphaba replied flatly, "but 'perfect' is equally true."

"To you, maybe."

Elphaba was in the process of putting on her shoes; she propped one stockinged foot on the bed and leaned her chin on her knee. To Glinda it looked extremely uncomfortable. "Are you implying that I have no taste, or that I always think you look perfect?"

"The latter," Glinda said, with a feeling of warmth as she realized it was true.

"If it helps, I did not think you looked perfect last night," Elphaba mused. "Still beautiful, but not perfect." She dropped her foot suddenly and went back to putting on her boot. "Anyway it's the middle of winter; no one will notice if you're paler today than you were yesterday. Hardly anyone saw you yesterday in any case."

"You're very helpful."

"Stand next to me all day - that'll make you look pinker." Elphaba shivered as she stood up, and Glinda was at her side in a flash, feeling her forehead.

"That's the third time this morning, and it's warm in here," she said. "You'll get a chill from being so cold last night."

Elphaba looked a little bit guilty - from knowing she hadn't taken proper care, probably. "People don't actually get sick from being chilled," she said, lightly pushing away Glinda's hand.

"It weakens the chest," Glinda maintained. "Especially when you're as thin as you are."

"I'm not going to get sick." Elphaba left Glinda standing between their beds and went to fetch her cloak. "Let's get to class."

Although she knew it would be better to appear completely independent and carefree, Glinda crossed the campus toward their history class with her arm tucked through Elphaba's, holding her hand tightly. They separated as they entered the classroom, but when Fiyero looked up to note their entrance Glinda felt Elphaba's hand, fleeting but reassuring, at the small of her back. She and Elphaba by silent agreement took Glinda's old place, on the other side of the room from Fiyero, and Glinda couldn't help slipping her hand back into Elphaba's as they sat down amid the silent stares of many of their classmates.

Pfannee came and sat next to Glinda, with a quick glance from her to Fiyero and back again. "Something wrong this morning, Glinda?" she asked.

Before Glinda could become defensive, Elphaba replied in that annoyed-with-the-world tone that was such a particular talent of hers, "I'm not feeling well and Glinda's fussing."

Partly because they _had_ been discussing Elphaba's health that morning, Glinda managed to reply immediately and only afterward realized Elphaba was covering for her. "I am _not_ fussing," she said.

Elphaba coughed quietly into her hand, and Pfannee put a couple of extra inches of bench between herself and Glinda. "Well, don't cough in my direction," she said. Elphaba just smiled.

After class, however, Elphaba had to hurry off to a private meeting with their sorcery instructor, which left Glinda to walk to lunch with Pfannee alone. Pfannee wasted no time, not that Glinda had expected any different, in saying, "So - not going to lunch with Fiyero today, then?"

"Oh." Glinda laughed, and hoped it didn't sound as empty as it felt. "That's all ancient history, didn't I tell you?"

Pfannee's eyes widened as she sensed gossip. "No, you did not," she said.

"I expect it went out of my head this morning, what with Elphaba feeling ill," Glinda went on airily. Thank goodness she had always been a good actress, anyway. She shook her head. "She has no constitution, you know - how could she, being so skinny?"

Something about those words appeared to have distracted Pfannee from the subject of Fiyero, for the time being at least. She frowned prettily at Glinda for a moment before saying, "You know, I don't entirely _understand_ . . . you and Elphaba."

"What's to understand?" Glinda asked.

"Well, you - like her."

"Yes." The wind kicked up; Glinda plunged her hands deep into the pockets of her coat and shrugged. "So?"

"You never used to."

"I didn't know her that well before."

"And now you do."

"Now I do."

Pfannee shook her head. "I mean, at first when you actually started _talking_ to her it seemed like maybe you were feeling guilty -"

"I was," Glinda said.

"But for what - you don't have to like everybody."

"Not for not liking her - but for being hateful to her. For being meaner than I had to be, when she was nice to me." She looked up at Pfannee. "You can see that, can't you?"

"I guess." Pfannee paused. "But that's a reason to be . . . civil to her, not to _like_ her."

"Well, first I was civil to her, then I got to like her. Honestly Pfannee, it's not that hard to understand."

"But _why_ do you like her? That's what I don't see."

Glinda hesitated, debating whether to give the honest answer or the glib one. "Because of how she is with me," she said finally. "She - thinks she doesn't know how to love people, because of the way she's always been treated. But she does know how; she just does it without thinking. That's why." That was a bit glib, but it wasn't dishonest.

"She hasn't . . ."

Glinda waited the space of several steps for Pfannee to finish her question, but it didn't appear that she planned to continue. "Hasn't what?"

"Hasn't . . ." Pfannee's mouth twisted as Glinda looked at her, and she did an uncomfortable half-skip in place of a step. "Well, you know - replaced Fiyero."

Glinda felt her forehead wrinkle automatically as she pondered the question. "Replaced him? What do you mean?"

Pfannee's face had gone extremely pink and it didn't appear to be from the cold; whatever she was thinking, it was obviously embarrassing her in some way. "Replaced him - as your . . ."

"_Oh._" Glinda very nearly stamped her foot. "Why does _everyone_ think that?"

"So someone else has asked you the same thing?" Pfannee asked curiously.

"Not - exactly." It certainly wasn't something she could explain to Pfannee, and at any rate she wasn't really sure herself.

"But it's not true?"

"Of course not. Elphaba would never -"

"_Elphaba_ would never?" Pfannee paused mid-stride. "Does that mean you would?"

"That I would - oh, I see." Glinda had begun to feel a bit lightheaded; she hoped she wasn't coming down with whatever it was Elphaba was so staunchly insisting she hadn't caught. "I meant, it seems to me that the . . . perception is, that if we _were_ - er -"

"Like Amathee and what's-her-name from Settica?"

Glinda nodded, her face heating up to rival Pfannee's. "Yes, like that - that it would be because Elphaba was doing something _to_ me."

Pfannee raised an eyebrow. She was clearly growing more comfortable with the subject now that it was out in the open. "Isn't that the general idea in those kinds of situations?"

"_No_, I mean - they think she would be - manipulating, or controlling, or - hurting me in some way. That it wouldn't really be my choice. Understand?"

Pfannee hesitated and then started walking again. "I suppose," she said. "But - so your answer to my question was that Elphaba isn't - doing something to you that you don't want. So you didn't necessarily say that you and she aren't, well, for lack of a better phrase, doing things to each other."

"There's no need to be so crude about it," Glinda complained, taking refuge in prim shock to avoid thinking too hard. "Now I wonder just what you thought I was letting Fiyero get away with."

Ha. Pfannee at long last looked reasonably chagrined. "I didn't mean to imply . . ."

"And anyway, the answer is no. As to Elphaba."

"You're not . . ."

"We're not." Glinda paused. "And listen, if you ever hear anyone else saying anything . . . well, I just hate that people might say things like that about her. She has enough trouble without people thinking she's - I can't even think of a word."

"Molesting you?"

"- yes, that. I mean, if anything -" She froze.

"If anything what?"

Glinda could have slapped herself for what she had nearly said. It would hardly have helped to quell any rumors that might be flying around. She shook her head and smiled. "If anything she's the least likely person I can think of - you know how reserved she is."

"I suppose."

Glinda bit her lip as they walked the rest of the way in silence. What she had nearly said, of course, was that _she_ was the one who was always kissing Elphaba and making her uncomfortable; _she_ was the one who kept demanding things Elphaba wouldn't have offered. She hadn't thought much about it before, but . . . but . . .

"Elphaba," she said on her roommate's return to their dormitory before dinner, "would you rather I didn't kiss you?" She made her tone light and airy and carefully did _not_ look at Elphaba while she was speaking.

"Just now, yes, I would prefer that you didn't." Glinda would have been hurt, but it was easy to tell that something was wrong. Elphaba's voice, hardly sweet on the best of days, was low and scratched and strained. Her skin was a sicklier shade than usual and there was a flush of unnatural (well, _unusually_ unnatural) color in her cheeks. Her posture, as she dropped her satchel on the floor and sank onto her bed, was slumped and weary.

"You _are_ ill," Glinda said, going to sit beside Elphaba. "I -"

"If you say 'I told you,' I will kiss you and hope you catch it."

Glinda closed her mouth momentarily. "I'm sorry," she said once she had decided it was safe. "What hurts?"

"Everything." Elphaba finally leaned back fully onto the bed, and Glinda frowned down at her.

"You'd better go to the infirmary."

"No."

"But Elphie -"

"No. I'll be fine."

"You're far from fine." Glinda passed her hand over Elphaba's forehead, which now felt quite warm.

Elphaba closed her eyes and turned her face slightly into Glinda's touch. "Please don't," she asked. "Just go on to dinner and let me rest for a while. I'll be feeling better by the time you get back."

Glinda bit her lip again. Go to dinner without Elphaba? After their lunchtime conversation she wasn't certain that she wanted to sit with Pfannee just now - but then, if there were rumors circulating, surely it would be better to be seen more often in the company of her other friends and without Elphaba. Especially now that she and Fiyero - well, weren't she and Fiyero anymore. No, this was the best thing - she knew, of course, that there was no good outcome here; if she abandoned Elphaba it would seem only logical to the rest of the student body, and if she clung to her (the way she wanted to?) some of them _would_ assume that she was under Elphaba's sway. Glinda would just try to have to reach some kind of happy medium, if she wanted to protect them both.


	17. Chapter 16

**~~Elphaba~~**

"You don't look very well."

Elphaba glared up at Fiyero's roommate, who had dropped into a library chair beside hers. "I never look very well."

"You're looking _less_ green than usual; I don't think that's a good thing."

"Then you're the only one." She barely got the sentence out before a coughing fit seized her and she turned away from him, shaking.

"Yeah, that sounded healthy," Rikk commented. "Just try not to cough on me, all right? I need a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Her voice was harsh and scratched-sounding even to her own ears.

"You remember my friend from home? From the Ball?"

She passed a hand over her forehead; her skin was so hot that her face was actually painful to touch. "The - Munchkin?"

"Yeah - Kiren. The thing is, he actually does really like your sister, and I promised I'd at least talk to you about it so he'd shut up."

"So you're talking to me. What am I supposed to do about it?"

"Well, she'll barely speak to him."

Elphaba leaned back in her chair, resting her head. "If she doesn't like him, there's nothing I can do about that."

"I don't think it's that she doesn't like him," Rikk said. "I think she doesn't trust that he really likes her, because of Boq . . . and Glinda."

"So . . ." She closed her eyes briefly, feeling them burn against her eyelids. "So you want me to convince Nessa that this boy actually likes her, and hasn't been coerced in some way by Glinda."

"Or at least try. Will you -"

"I'll think about it." Her head was reeling too much to make sense of anything at the moment; when Rikk had come along he'd interrupted nothing more productive than her staring at a history of sorcery trying to make the words stay in focus. "I - I really need to get back to this . . ."

"You really don't look well," he said. "Are you - should you go to the infirmary? Or should I get someone?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I just need to finish reading this."

"You haven't turned a page in ten minutes."

"You were watching me?"

"I was gauging your mood."

"And you decided you should come over here anyway?"

"I decided you're too sick to have any mood at all."

"I'm not sick," she insisted.

"All right, you're not sick. Talk to your sister, please? Or Kiren is going to drive me insane, and I can't have _two_ lovesick -"

Elphaba waited, but despite her fogged head she was fairly certain that Rikk hadn't finished his statement. "Two lovesick what?"

"Friends." He pushed his chair back, suddenly seeming in a hurry to leave. "Another friend is also . . . well, you know. Feel better, Elphaba!"

"I'm not -" He was already gone, and there was no need to continue protesting. She laid her head down on top of the open book and concentrated on trying to think straight, about anything at all.

The image of Madame Morrible swam in front of her closed eyes. Morrible hadn't wanted her and Glinda to figure out how to combine their magics - but she wanted them to learn something similar but less powerful - why take the risk? Because she wanted them to use it for her. But why bother, if she thought Glinda was useless? Obviously she had realized that wasn't the case. Glinda had been murmuring in her sleep lately, something about leering and lust and Elphaba, of all people, and what did that have to do with Morrible? Something - something to do with the spell she had cast on them - but why, why cast that spell?

She squeezed her eyes tighter shut and massaged her aching temples with both hands. Morrible, and the Wizard, thought Glinda could be manipulated through and by Elphaba. They thought her relationship to Elphaba, the source of her weakness (and Elphaba's, for that matter), was based on sex. All right, so sex is what Morrible would use if she wanted to turn Glinda against Elphaba - but why do that, when they were counting on her devotion to Elphaba to ensure her loyalty? Unless they weren't. Maybe she had been trying to lure Glinda, to offer her something more compelling. But then why hadn't it worked?

The library lamp divided itself into two images as Elphaba opened her eyes; the room spun and trembled. Glinda would be looking for her at dinner - Glinda would help her get up to their room. Glinda had promised not to force her to the infirmary. She got shakily to her feet and headed for the stairwell. How stupid of Morrible really, how unobservant, to think that Glinda could be swayed into betraying Elphaba. Glinda could never do such a thing. Morrible hadn't seen Glinda break down in tears at the prospect of Elphaba leaving - that was her problem. Glinda had been afraid - Glinda might do almost anything if she were afraid . . .

If the Wizard and Morrible wanted Elphaba, what could be their goal in turning her and Glinda against each other?

Unless they wanted her and Glinda fighting, fighting in public.

Yes, that would be perfect. A bad witch to do all the unpleasant things and a good one to profess the Wizard's love for his people. The bad witch couldn't corrupt the good one; they'd have to break her away -

No. No, the Wizard had all but said that Glinda was only important because she was important to Elphaba.

Maybe Morrible didn't tell the Wizard all her plans.

Maybe Glinda didn't tell Elphaba everything that happened when she and Morrible were alone.

Elphaba stumbled and leaned against the wall for support, her stomach roiling, cold sweat prickling at her forehead. _Dinner_, she reminded herself. _And then trust Glinda to help._

Trust Glinda. Of course she could.

**~~Glinda~~**

Glinda knew Elphaba was worse the moment she saw her enter the dining room. She glanced at her friends' curious faces, but there was no way to get around the fact that Elphaba looked very ill and simply couldn't be left to herself. "Excuse me," she said. "My roommate's been ill and I think she may need some assistance."

As she took Elphaba's elbow, feeling the unnatural heat of her roommate's skin through her sleeve, Elphaba said intently, "Glinda, you've told me everything Morrible said to you, haven't you?"

"What?" Glinda steered Elphaba toward an empty table and eased her down into a chair. "Elphaba, you're burning up."

"I'm fine," Elphaba insisted. "I need to know. Did she say anything to you that you didn't tell me about?"

"Nothing worth mentioning." It was true, sort of. At any rate she wasn't going to try to explain when she wasn't even perfectly sure of what it all meant herself - especially not when Elphaba was practically raving from illness anyway and barely knew what she was saying. "Let me get you some soup and try to eat it, please? You weren't at lunch, you'll faint."

"I don't need to -" Elphaba started, but Glinda was already on her way to the servery. Honestly, of all the stubborn things.

When she set a bowl of soup on the table Elphaba predictably ignored it, but when Glinda prodded the spoon into her hand she ate methodically, as long as Glinda seemed to be listening to what she was saying. "I need to know," she insisted. "I think they're trying to use you for something . . ."

"Yes, Elphie, we know that," Glinda said patiently. "They're using us both for something, remember?"

"No, something different, something bad -"

"Isn't it all bad?"

"They want to turn you against me, they want us to fight -"

"Elphie, stop." Glinda covered Elphaba's free hand with hers and watched as her roommate reluctantly returned to her soup. "No one wants us to fight. And even if they did it wouldn't matter, because I wouldn't be turned against you no matter what. You trust me, don't you?"

Elphaba nodded, slowly, her fever-bright eyes fixed intently on Glinda's face.

"Then will you please let me take you to the infirmary?"

"No!" Elphaba had been vehemently against the idea from the start, but now she looked almost panicked. "No, you have to promise me. I can't go there, and neither can you."

"What?" Elphaba's panic was contagious, but it wasn't fear of the infirmary that plagued Glinda - it was fear that Elphaba's fever was finally too high, that she was truly incoherent. "Elphaba, what's wrong with the infirmary?"

"The matron - I saw the matron the other night . . ."

"Saw her doing what?"

"In the Animal housing - I saw her talking to someone _inside_ -"

"You didn't tell me this before." Glinda was fairly certain this had never happened, that Elphaba was delirious, but an ominous feeling descended over her anyway. If Elphaba was right -

"I didn't remember until today - I think it was a spell . . ."

Now she was certain Elphaba was raving, but what could she do? And if there was the slightest possibility that it _was_ true, that someone had put a spell on Elphaba to make her forget seeing the infirmary matron talking to - who? One of the Wizard's spies? Then Glinda certainly couldn't take her there, even if she could have managed it without Elphaba fighting her.

She decided finally that the only thing to do was to take Elphaba back to their room, as she kept begging Glinda to do, and hope for the best. While they were still in the dining room she let Elphaba try to walk on her own with just a steadying arm linked through hers, but by the time they were outside and away, mostly, from prying eyes Glinda was nearly holding her up. Elphaba's heat soaked through their clothes every place that they touched, and Glinda felt as though she could have gone without her coat and been perfectly warm.

Elphaba leaned heavily against her and stumbled often, and Glinda began to fear that she wouldn't be strong enough to get them back to the dormitory. "Here," she said as gently as she could even while she staggered under Elphaba's limp dead weight, "sit on this bench for a moment and rest."

Elphaba sank onto the bench without protest and leaned her head against its back, closing her eyes. Glinda sat close by and took off her coat as she watched Elphaba's ragged breathing. After a moment she slipped an arm around Elphaba's shoulders and moved closer to her so that she could whisper, "I'm sorry you're so sick. I wish I could help."

One of Elphaba's hands stole into Glinda's lap to clasp her free hand as if it were a reply. Glinda sat quietly resting until she noticed that Elphaba's breathing had slowed, and she decided it was time to try making it the rest of the way. Sitting up straight, she pulled Elphaba's arm over her own shoulders and said, "Come on Elphie, let's get you home."

The fact that there was no reply from Elphaba didn't particularly worry her, but the fact that Elphaba didn't move or give any other sign of hearing did. "Elphie," she said again. "Come on, time to get up." When Elphaba still didn't respond, Glinda felt the panic begin to rise within her again. She quickly checked Elphaba's breathing, her pulse, her heartbeat - she seemed all right, considering, but Glinda couldn't rouse her. As she prodded at Elphaba, one arm moved slightly and she appeared to swallow, but she didn't seem able to respond or, certainly, to stand or walk.

Glinda looked around them frantically. Ordinarily she would have called for help and asked someone to get the infirmary matron, but . . . the crazy possibility that Elphaba might be right about the matron pricked at her brain. And now Elphaba wasn't just a little bit ill; she was terribly vulnerable, unable to defend herself against - whatever might happen. Perhaps insanity was catching, but Glinda felt strongly that she should trust Elphaba's instincts. If Elphaba got worse, she promised herself, _then_ she would have no other choice but to go to the matron. But for now, no.

Which left finding some other way to get her back to the dormitory where Glinda could try to take care of her.

Few other students were wandering by at this time - most were still at dinner, or had skipped the university dinner entirely and were already out on the town. Glinda didn't recognize most of the students she did see, and she was reluctant to entrust Elphaba to a stranger - especially considering how strangers tended to react to Elphaba. Then she saw _him_, walking alone.

For a long moment her mind rebelled. She couldn't possibly talk to him. She couldn't possibly ask him for help. It would be too humiliating, too dependent, too weak . . . what if he said no or ignored her? What if he told her to leave him alone? Of course he had said he loved her, loved her as - what? A friend? But maybe that was just something boys said. She couldn't . . .

Oh, but she could, and she knew it. For Elphaba she could. Especially because she had to.

Freeing herself carefully from Elphaba's weight, Glinda arranged her nearly-unconscious roommate as comfortably as she could on the bench and then sprinted after Fiyero, calling his name when she came close enough. He turned with an apprehensive look on his face (she didn't exactly blame him), and said nervously, "Glinda. Hi. Did you -"

"I need help," she blurted out before he could say something that would mortify them both. "Elphaba's ill and I can't get her home by myself."

His face changed immediately. "Where?" he asked.

"This way." She hurried back to the bench where she had left Elphaba, not bothering to see whether he was following. She slipped herself back under Elphaba's arm and whispered, "I'm back, Elphie - Fiyero's going to help me get you home."

"She's fevered?" Fiyero asked.

Glinda nodded. She was finding that having something to concentrate on was making it much easier to talk to him than she would have anticipated. "She's been ill for a few days, it keeps getting worse. She was walking earlier but now I can't get her up."

"We need to take her to the infirmary."

"No!" Fiyero looked taken aback by her vehemence. "I can't explain," she said, "but we can't take her there. It's not safe."

"How is -"

"Just believe me, please? It's to do with -" She dropped her voice to a whisper, forcing him to lean closer to hear her. "- the Wizard, and . . . something that happened in the Emerald City." Not exactly true, but close enough.

"All right," he said somewhat doubtfully. He sat down on Elphaba's other side and lifted her other arm over his shoulders. "Elphaba," he said, "think you can walk if we both help you?" When Elphaba didn't respond except to stir slightly he leaned closer, studying her face. He placed her arm back at her side and went through the same motions Glinda had earlier, feeling her pulse at her wrist and her throat. "Great Oz," he said, sliding his hand around and pressing it to the back of her neck, then slightly down the back of her dress, "she's like a stove, Glinda. Are you sure we can't -"

"We can't. Really. Just please -"

"All right." He stood up. "But I don't think we're going to have any luck expecting her to help. You'll just have to open doors for me."

"Open doors?"

He didn't have to explain further; he was already lifting Elphaba carefully into his arms. "Will you be able to carry her all the way?" Glinda asked, hovering anxiously.

"It's easy, she doesn't weigh hardly anything." He jerked his chin toward the girls' dormitory off in the distance. "Go ahead, lead on."

They attracted their share of stares on the way to the dormitory, but now Glinda was grateful that so few students were around. She was able to get Fiyero into the building and up the stairs without being seen - both of them walking silently and avoiding catching each other's eye - and let him into their room with a sigh of relief.

Fiyero set Elphaba gently on her bed and pressed his hand to her forehead. "If you won't bring her to the infirmary you're going to have to do something to bring this fever down."

"So you're a doctor now?" She hadn't meant to sound quite so hostile. Or maybe she had.

He only looked at her over his shoulder. "Not a lot of doctors out in the Vinkus, actually," he said. "It's mostly folk medicine." His hand pressed against the side of Elphaba's neck as he was talking. "Ice if you can get it, or cold water - but keep the fire going, you're not trying to kill her." His hand slipped down over her collarbone and quite absently he unfastened the first few buttons of her dress to press his hand over the exposed skin.

"Fiyero!" Glinda exclaimed, scandalized.

He looked down at what he was doing. "She's gotten so chilled from being outside that I can't tell what her temperature is from her face anymore."

"Still, I think I'll take it from here."

"Right." He straightened and headed for the door.

"Fiyero?"

He stopped and turned. "Yeah?"

"Thank you. I'm sorry I yelled."

"It's all right." He hesitated. "Glinda - I don't . . . want us to have to avoid each other. I want to see you - I want us to be friends, if you think we can."

She twisted her hands without really thinking about what she was doing. "Maybe," she said finally. "I can't promise."

"That's fair." He glanced over at Elphaba. "Will you tell me how she is?"

She followed his gaze. "Yes. If anything changes I'll tell you."

"And better not tell her I . . ." He gestured toward the neckline of his own shirt.

"No, I'll leave that part out."

"Good." He lifted a hand in an awkward wave. "See you later, then."

She nodded. "See you later."


	18. Chapter 17

**~~Glinda~~**

Glinda and Elphaba both had a bad night. Elphaba alternated between unresponsiveness and bouts of delirium (although Glinda's greatest secret fear was that it might not really be delirium, that Elphaba might be _right_) in which she clutched Glinda's arm and looked at her with unseeing eyes as she warned her that Morrible was trying to corrupt her. By morning - after near-constant applications of cold cloths and long periods of shivering when Elphaba, despite the heat radiating from her skin, clung to Glinda as if she were freezing to death - it seemed that Elphaba had grown a bit cooler. She had slept a little without being disturbed by shivering or shaking, and the color of her skin seemed a bit better. But it was obvious that she was still feverish, still uncomfortable, and still very ill. By an hour or so after dawn, Glinda had settled on what she thought had to be the best possible solution. She dressed hastily, threw on Elphaba's cloak to conceal the fact that she hadn't taken much care with her appearance, and hurried as quickly as she could to the infirmary.

"I think I'm coming down with a cold," she told the matron as earnestly as she could, adding a little cough into her hand for effect. "I think I can still attend classes, but is there anything you could give me for the fever?"

"Poor thing," the matron cooed, patting her on the arm. Her brightly curious eyes probed Glinda sympathetically, reaching, seemingly, deep inside her. "Let me get you something that you can take back to your room . . ."

Glinda settled onto a chair, feeling deeply cared for, relaxed, safe, a little sleepy, a little foggy. She watched the matron take an empty vial from her stores and then reach into the furthest-back corners of one of her cabinets to fill the vial with white powder. "You can mix this with water or tea, dear," the matron said as she worked. "It should make everything much better. I'm so glad you came to see me."

Something she would later think of as no less than miraculous pricked at the back of Glinda's mind - Elphaba's frightened face, the unnaturally peaceful feeling that had come over her when the matron began speaking, the same strange loss of control over her own emotions that she had felt in the Wizard's palace . . .

_Why did something as common as a fever remedy come from such a tiny jar in the back of a cupboard?_

Glinda swallowed as the matron pressed the vial into her hands. The woman's smile was knowing, as if she were aware of exactly why Glinda had come. "There you are, dear," she said. "You get on back to your dormitory and everything will be fine." Her eyes brushed over Elphaba's cloak, which was rather too long to belong to Glinda, with a deep curiosity.

Glinda put the vial deep into her skirt pocket. "Thank you," she said. "I'll take it right away."

The matron smiled. "Good."

Glinda thought carefully all the way back to the dormitory, and it seemed to her that she had only one option left - or two, really, but the second involved leaving Elphaba long enough to go into town, and she didn't want to do that. She knocked on Madame Greyling's door and schooled her face into an expression of unease and discomfort - it wasn't hard.

"Miss Glinda," Madame Greyling said with some surprise. "Is anything the matter?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you so early," Glinda said, although Madame was clearly already up and ready for the day. "But it's just -" she glanced around her and lowered her voice, "I'm having some - female - discomfort, and I _can't_ go to the infirmary - you understand - I was just wondering whether you had anything on hand I might - take . . ."

The headmistress clucked sympathetically and opened her door wider. "Of course I understand, dear. When I moved into the dormitory Madame Morrible advised me to have on hand a supply of things you young ladies might need, in an emergency - I have just the thing."

The mention of Madame Morrible made Glinda nervous, but Madame Greyling had never given her that feeling of distrust that Morrible inspired. She had to hope this was the right thing to do - the apothecary in town wouldn't be open for hours yet . . . at least Madame Greyling was pouring something from a very ordinary bottle that she had taken from her desk drawer, with a very ordinary label on it that professed itself to be the kind of medicine Glinda wanted.

"Here you are," Madame said, capping off the vial and handing it to Glinda. "That ought to be enough for a day or so."

"Thank you. Thank you so much." Glinda ducked out of the room and hurried back upstairs, terrified that she would find Elphaba worse. Elphaba was asleep, however, exactly where Glinda had left her, and her temperature seemed about the same.

Glinda set the vial Madame Greyling had given her on the table and cast the occasional nervous glance at it while she set about making tea. The other vial, the one from the matron, burned a hole in her pocket - she wondered whether there was any spell in their sorcery text to find out exactly what it was. It would probably have to wait until Elphaba was well - unless, of course, Glinda was about to poison her. If Madame Greyling's vial was tainted as well - as Glinda now assumed the matron's was - well . . .

She made the tea tepid on purpose and filled a cup, tipping a spoon's worth of Madame's powder into it. After looking into the cup for a long moment, making up her mind, she took a cautious sip from it and waited. It tasted all right, if a little bitter. Nothing dramatic happened. She didn't feel any different.

She perched on the side of Elphaba's bed and shook her gently with the hand that wasn't holding the tea. "Elphie?" she called softly. "You need to wake up for a moment and drink this, it'll make you feel better."

Elphaba's dark eyes, when they opened, were glazed but coherent. "What is it?" she asked in a raspy whisper.

Glinda hesitated for the space of a breath. "Tea," she said. "Just tea. You haven't had anything to drink since yesterday. Come on, I'll help you sit up." Holding the teacup carefully away from herself with a steady arm, she slipped the other one under Elphaba's shoulders and propped her up. When Elphaba seemed ready she held the teacup to her lips and waited as Elphaba lifted one hand to steady it. "Go on," Glinda said. "As much as you can manage." She kept one hand under the teacup to help with its weight; the other stroked Elphaba's hair back from her face as Glinda watched her drink the tea.

She managed to drink most of it, not commenting on the taste - perhaps she was too ill to notice its bitterness. Glinda set the cup on the nightstand and shifted herself more fully onto the bed, letting Elphaba rest against her chest. If she was going to poison her roommate, she was certainly going to be there to know about it. She watched carefully as Elphaba's eyes closed, watched her chest rise and fall as she went back to sleep. Glinda took one of Elphaba's hands in hers and kissed her forehead, settling down to wait.

She woke from an unintended sleep what must have been hours later - high afternoon sunlight was streaming through the windows. She was still cradling Elphaba against her, with her legs draped over Elphaba's on top of the blankets. In a panic she looked down, but Elphaba was still sleeping calmly, her breathing perfectly regular. To Glinda's touch her forehead felt a little cooler. Glinda breathed an enormous sigh of relief and went to make some more tea.

**~~Elphaba~~**

Elphaba looked down at the cup of tea in her hands, contemplating it. She knew Glinda had been waking her up to drink it all day, but this was the first time she could remember feeling really alert while doing so. "Glinda," she asked, "why is this tea so bitter?"

"Is it?" Glinda asked. She was perched at the desk, bent slightly over her own cup of tea and her sorcery text.

"Yes." Elphaba rolled the cup carefully in her hands, watching the sediments shift - two different colors. "What's in it?"

"Just tea."

"No." A wave of panic was beginning to make itself known; she looked at Glinda as if she had never seen her before. "No, it's not."

Glinda came and sat on the end of her bed, and Elphaba found herself wanting to flinch. "No," Glinda said. "It's a medicine for pain and fever. I got it -"

"Did you get it from the infirmary?" Elphaba asked urgently, her stomach dropping. She couldn't have, hadn't she warned her - or tried . . .

"No!" Glinda protested. "I got it from Madame Greyling. I tested it myself and you're much better, so it _must_ be all right."

"You told me it was just plain tea. I remember."

"I was afraid you wouldn't drink it, you were so upset, but your fever was so high, you had to have something." Glinda's fingers twisted into the blankets. "Are - are you angry?"

"You - I don't know." Glinda had lied to her, had tricked her into taking something that might have been dangerous. But Glinda had believed it was all right. And apparently it had been. But it had been a risk - she ought to have let Elphaba decide herself - but then Elphaba remembered, knew how foggy she had been, knew she would have been unable to decide anything, unable to do anything but refuse out of blind unknowing fear - Glinda had lied to her, but Glinda had been right. She had made Elphaba's decision for her, but Elphaba had been unable to make it herself. She looked down into the cup of tea she was still holding. "No," she said finally, softly.

Glinda reached up and took the cup from her, setting it on the nightstand so that she could hold one of Elphaba's hands. "There's something else I have to tell you," she said.

Elphaba's trepidation returned in full force. "What?"

"I went to the infirmary this morning."

"You - _what_?"

"I went and told the matron I was feeling ill and asked her for a fever remedy." Glinda was speaking low and fast, her eyes cast down. "I think - I think she knew the truth. I think she knew it was intended for you. I think she put a spell on me so I wouldn't question what she gave me, but - I remembered what you said - I went to Madame and got the medicine from her instead, but I kept what the matron gave me." She pulled the little vial out of her skirt pocket and held it up for Elphaba to see. "This is what she gave me. I don't know what it is or what it would have done to you, but I don't think it's fever medicine."

Elphaba took the vial from her with shaking hands. She hardly knew what to think - Glinda had risked so much, had come so close to giving her what could be _anything_ - but in the end she hadn't, in the end she'd ended up right - right or lucky? Elphaba shook her head. "I told you you were clever," she rasped. She hoped Glinda would take it as forgiveness, which it was - mostly.

Glinda climbed up onto the bed and reclined beside Elphaba, slipping her arms around Elphaba's shoulders. "You shouldn't," Elphaba said, although she was already leaning into Glinda's warmth. Her fever did seem better, but in return she was freezing. "You'll catch it."

"If I'm going to, it's already too late anyway." As if to prove her point, Glinda leaned in and brushed a light kiss across Elphaba's lips - Elphaba wasn't entirely certain whether she planned to do that often, from now on. "Go back to sleep for a while," Glinda said.

"We should figure out what the matron gave you," Elphaba protested weakly.

"We will. Later. You didn't take it, so there's no rush."

"There is a rush; she'll be wondering why it didn't do what it was supposed to do."

"I doubt she would know immediately if it had, anyway." Glinda tucked the blankets tighter around Elphaba as if she knew Elphaba was really too ill to fight very much. "Sleep."

When Elphaba woke, the room was dark and she was alone. She panicked for a moment - but after all, there were lots of perfectly innocent places Glinda could have gone. And the little vial from the matron was where she had left it, on the nightstand, still full to the brim. And she wasn't dead, and she felt in her right mind. Still, she didn't know whether to feel guilty or not that she had instantly suspected Glinda of - what? She didn't even know.

The fire was going low and the room was chilly. She dragged herself out of bed, wrapping the blanket around her as a robe, and went to build it up again. She was still sitting there, leaning against the end of Glinda's bed, watching the flames with her face growing warm from the heat, when Glinda came back in. Something was wrong - she was clutching both hands to her stomach, leaning against the closed door as if afraid someone would try to break in, and her face was white as a sheet.

"What?" Elphaba asked.

Glinda fixed frightened eyes on her. "You're all right?"

"I feel a little better. What happened?"

"The matron's gone."

"You went _back_ -"

"No." Glinda shrugged out of her coat and dropped to the floor beside Elphaba. "I went to see Fiyero." In response to Elphaba's lifted eyebrow Glinda added quickly, "We're not - he asked to know how you were."

Something in Elphaba's stomach flipped over. "Why would he ask that?"

Glinda looked down at her lap. "Well - I couldn't get you home myself last night. You were nearly unconscious. He - carried you up here."

Now the something in her stomach was doing cartwheels. "What?"

"Sorry." Glinda drew her knees up to her chest. "It was the only way, and he seemed to really want to help."

"But - he -" None of this made sense. "You talked to him?"

"I had to, you were so sick." Glinda bit her lip. "But anyway - I saw Milla, and she said there was a new matron. No one knows what's happened to the old one. Milla went for a headache remedy and was just told that the new matron had been hired this afternoon and the old one was already gone."

Elphaba swallowed and pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to clear her still-sleepy thoughts. "What do you think happened?"

"I've had a while to think about it," Glinda said, fingers playing thoughtfully with the hem of her skirt. "I think she was replaced because she failed."

"How do you mean?"

"I think she was supposed to do something to you, and someone knows it didn't work. So they replaced her."

Elphaba shuddered. "The new matron . . ."

"No, I don't think it's her." Glinda's forehead was knotted in deep consideration. "I didn't feel - _wrong_ about her. They must be planning to try with someone else."

"They who, though?" She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "I thought we were -"

"- safe. So did I." Glinda moved closer and took her hand. "You scared me so much yesterday, talking about Morrible wanting to use me for something. But when the matron started talking to me - it was so creepy, I thought you had to be right."

"Well. I'm sorry I scared you."

"You were pretty - nerve-wracking."

Elphaba pulled Glinda's hand into her lap. "So we think it is Morrible? She _has_ tried to control us before, I think. I would believe her agenda is different from the Wizard's."

"You don't think the Wizard would try to hurt you?" Glinda asked.

Elphaba considered that. "No, I don't think he would. Or you."

"Of course I wouldn't try to -"

"No. I meant - the Wizard wouldn't try to hurt you."

"Oh." Glinda's eyes dropped to Elphaba's lap. "You know - I mean, you know I _wouldn't_ -"

"Of course." Guilt gnawed at her, and she leaned her head on Glinda's shoulder. "Of course I know that."

"So," Glinda said after a moment. "How are we going to figure out what was in that vial? Can we trust Madame Greyling?"

"I haven't decided."

"Me either. But she did give me the real medicine when I asked, so I suppose that means something."

"But it could mean she's trying to earn your - or our - trust." Elphaba felt her eyes growing heavy, and she turned her face into Glinda's shoulder. "Doesn't mean she's on our side."

Glinda's fingers, warm and gentle, cradled the back of her head. "You're still sick, you should go back to bed," she said. "We'll think about it in the morning."

"You mean you'll send me to bed, and then you'll stay up half the night thinking about it. I know you by now."

Glinda was getting up to her knees, tugging Elphaba up as well. "Think you know everything about me, huh?"

"No. Not everything."


	19. Chapter 18

**~~Glinda~~**

Somewhere along the line, she had turned into two people.

The first was groping for the girl she had been when she first arrived at Shiz, and finding it not that difficult, as long as she did all the right things. After all, some things had come full circle. She was unattached again, free to flirt breezily with anyone she liked and to duck awkward encounters with those she didn't. It didn't even matter that she didn't _really_ like any of them - she hadn't before, either, before Fiyero. She was both more and less vulnerable than she had been before: more, because she now knew exactly what could happen if flirting went too far or if she lost control of the situation, and less, because people were a little afraid of her now, or rather they were afraid of the Wizard's power and Elphaba's anger.

Her looks hadn't changed, of course, and no one would notice if she was a little thinner as long as she remembered to alter her clothes accordingly. If it took more powder in the mornings to hide the shadows under her eyes, no one would know but Elphaba and _she_ certainly wasn't telling. She hadn't lost the ability to chatter about gowns and parties, and if other, more disturbing thoughts tended to creep in, they were easy enough to push aside for later. And she knew she would be thinking about them later.

So she spent her daytimes in the company of Pfannee and Shenshen and Milla and the other girls who seemed relieved to cluster around her again, as if their center had been missing while she was preoccupied with Fiyero and Elphaba and the Wizard. They weren't entirely the same girls they had been all those months ago, of course - some of them had matured in certain ways at least; some of them had boyfriends and seemed to feel guilty about it whenever they looked at Glinda; some of them - Pfannee among them - had learned to study a bit more often in the hopes of not being sent home at the end of the term. But in essentials they were the same. Glinda soaked up their rapt attention; she told stories about the Emerald City with the disturbing parts edited out, focusing on the beauty and grandeur; she tossed her hair and made her eyes sparkle and let them think she was destined to be a queen someday, missing prince or no. Odd green companion or no.

But the other girl that she was - that girl slipped away from the crowd sometimes at dinner to eat with Elphaba in an out-of-the-way corner of the dining room, or to pick nervously at her plate when Elphaba didn't show up at all. She walked to and from classes with her roommate, often without talking, but often brushing against Elphaba with her shoulder or her hand to remind herself that the other girl really was there. She stayed up late into the night reading, because something uncomfortable pricked at her mind whenever she thought of Morrible and she felt that somewhere there had to be an explanation, and that if only she could find it she might be able to sleep. She couldn't ask Elphaba for help because Elphaba was working hard enough on her own, and then sometimes she wasn't there at all.

On the nights when they were both in their room, Glinda would pretend to be asleep until she was sure Elphaba was - then she would get up and sit close by the fire to avoid lighting the lamps, paging silently through books she kept under her bed, turning her head every so often to watch Elphaba, who still coughed sometimes in her sleep although she seemed better in the daytime. But there were also nights when Elphaba failed to come home from the library, slipping into the room in the early morning hours with no explanation. The first time Glinda was positive something had happened to her; when Elphaba finally appeared she had yelled and scolded and cried until Elphaba apologized and said she couldn't say where she had been, and Glinda shouldn't worry. As if it were as easy as that. Glinda pretended not to worry on those nights, but she couldn't sleep until Elphaba came back. On those nights she sat studying at her desk with the lamps lit, sometimes poring over books that she would carefully return to Elphaba's side of the room before their absence was noticed, sometimes struggling with the Grimmerie itself, sometimes wrapping herself in one of Elphaba's sweaters.

Elphaba moved almost silently on her return, but Glinda knew the creaking of the stairwell and the soft, even step. The first several nights this happened she hurried to put out the lamps when she heard her roommate returning, and she crawled into bed and feigned sleep. After a while she didn't bother anymore. She only raised her head from her book and nodded in silent, uncommenting greeting, then returned to her reading. They developed an uneasy routine. Elphaba would always hesitate in the doorway, watching her; but as soon as she had removed her cloak she would come up behind Glinda's chair and embrace her, and she would kiss Glinda's hair and tell her to go to bed, and Glinda would. Elphaba's skin was chilled on those nights and she smelled of wind and forest, and sometimes she was smudged with soot. She never gave any hint of where she had been.

Glinda was a little afraid of her, but she was more afraid that she was losing her. In her dreams she heard Morrible's voice, but in the morning she could never remember the words. What she did remember was that Elphaba was never there, in the dreams.

In a way she looked forward to their next return to the Emerald City, which couldn't be far off - maybe Morrible would tip her hand, maybe something would change, maybe things would become clearer, but above all she and Elphaba would be alone again, away from Shiz, away from distractions and prying students and the need to pretend.

And yet, she remembered her resolution to protect them both from those prying students, and every morning she carefully put away the girl who spent sleepless nights worrying over ancient spells, who felt sick sometimes at the sight of her roommate's empty bed, who strained sometimes to catch Elphaba's scent on her own skin. She laughed, and she flirted, and she tried to make herself stop thinking.

**~~Fiyero~~**

He'd expected, being without Glinda for the first time since his first five minutes at this school, to be on the fringe of things. It surprised him to find that the opposite was true, that Glinda's crowd remained oddly separate from most of the male students. She held court - it was an unfair expression, but honestly he couldn't think of a fairer one that described it - among a cluster of adoring girls and an outer circle of boys who wanted to get their attention but rarely managed it. Fiyero found that he still fit right into his usual crowd of the campus bachelors, the ones who didn't have one particular girl and didn't especially want one, the ones who found sufficient company at the pubs off-campus and weren't much tempted by the prettied-up schoolgirls. They were generally too drunk to notice that Fiyero took little interest in female company once they were out on the town, and that suited him fine. Rikk probably knew and understood most of the truth, but he was tactful enough not to ask questions.

Glinda's apparent return to her former social status didn't alleviate Fiyero's guilt - _he_ noticed, even if those chattering girls didn't, that Glinda was thin, she was pale, she was often distracted, she daydreamed in class, her smile rarely reached her eyes. He thought Elphaba must have noticed as well, not just because she lived with Glinda and saw her day in and day out, but because she was watchful these days, hardly taking her eyes from Glinda, a concerned expression knotting her eyebrows together, her teeth worrying at her lip.

On the surface they appeared to be on the outs, and he sometimes worried about that, too. They weren't seen together nearly as often, at least not outside their room, and when they were together they often weren't talking. The easy, fond, almost too-friendly camaraderie he had found so strange at the beginning was so little in evidence these days, although they sat very close together in class and he often noted Glinda watching Elphaba out of the corner of her eye. They didn't seem to have fought, exactly, but something was off.

Elphaba, too, seemed if possible more separate, more intense, more angular, more awkward. She sometimes jumped when he talked to her, and seemed startled if he happened to take her arm or touch her hand. She let her hair hide her face when she sat in class beside him, and if he teased her she often looked confused, as if uncertain of why he was talking to her at all.

He saw them both, talked to them both, but they had become his go-betweens with each other. With Glinda he talked only about Elphaba, and once she was no longer ill Glinda began subtly to avoid him again. With Elphaba he spoke mostly about Glinda, until she seemed reluctant to do so anymore - not just to talk about Glinda with him, he thought, but reluctant to talk about her at all.

Still, one day after class he got her to confess that she was worried about her roommate, that Glinda seemed strained, but that it didn't seem to have anything to do with him. "She's not all right," Elphaba said, staring down at their feet walking in step across the thawing ground. "I don't know why. It _could_ be about you, I suppose - it could be almost anything."

"She won't talk to you?"

Elphaba's response was soft. "I haven't asked."

"Why not?"

"I'm afraid of what the answer might be." And that was all she would say on the subject.

He took her arm; she stiffened but didn't withdraw it. He was always so afraid to touch her, although he felt no similar constraints around almost anyone else he knew. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt her," he said, knowing that to Elphaba it might feel like a non sequitur.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes smoky, and said, "Neither would I." He wondered if it was meant to be a message for him. Whether it was or not, she was deadly serious. The silence passed between them for a long moment before he realized they had stopped walking.

**~~Elphaba~~**

She knew she was neglecting Glinda. What she wasn't sure about was whether Glinda's apparent return, in the daylight hours anyway, to her previous Galindafied self was a response to Elphaba's abandonment, or something else. She did know, however, that what she was doing was more important - not more important than Glinda, of course - but more important than coddling Glinda, more important than spending time with her. Saving her, saving them both, had to be more important.

Elphaba couldn't get the foggy uncertain image of the old matron out of her mind, but more troubling was her persisting inability to remember who she had seen the matron speaking with, or anything about that person. She was too afraid of being consistent, of being followed, of developing too easy a routine to watch every night, but on random nights - different days of the week, different hours - she stalked the woods behind the old blown-out Animal housing, watching, waiting to see lamps, to hear voices. On nights when it all seemed too quiet, suspiciously so, she crept into the building itself and felt her way in the darkness through its abandoned rooms and soot-filled halls. There was no way to tell, of course, which rooms had been Doctor Dillamond's, and she had no idea what she was looking for anyway. Twice she fell through unstable parts of the floor, and once she hurt her ankle badly and had to conceal a limp for days.

She slipped home to their room, to Glinda, on those nights cold and sore and often smelling of smoke and soot. It disturbed her when she began to find Glinda awake on her return - after that first night, that is, when Glinda had nearly cried herself sick and had refused to be comforted - but in a secret guilty way it was a relief. She should have been more worried about Glinda than about her own need for company, and she really should have asked what Glinda was studying so hard on those lonely nights while she was gone, but the sight of her in the quiet lamplight night after night was such an antidote to the darkness and the cold and the dirt. Even though Glinda was wrapped up in this conspiracy; even though Elphaba still wasn't satisfied that she understood the role Glinda was to play. Even though she wouldn't trust even Glinda with the knowledge of where she was spending her evenings, on the off-chance that the wrong person might find out.

She knew that Glinda worried. She knew that if Glinda's reading were really urgent enough to keep her up at all hours, she wouldn't have gone to bed every night as soon as Elphaba came home. She knew that Glinda rarely volunteered information anymore, that her usual friendly chatter was silenced and that she also didn't share the serious things, the things that were bothering her. She knew that Glinda touched her now as if she were stealing the contact, that she brushed Elphaba's hand as they walked instead of wrapping an arm around her waist, instead of kissing her on the cheek. She knew all these things, but there were still too many things she didn't know. There were too many things they still had to figure out together, but first, even more things she had to figure out on her own.

Although it was expected, the sight of the emerald green envelope in the pile handed to her by the mail clerk made her blood run cold. Elphaba wasn't certain that she was afraid of the Wizard anymore, as long as he seemed to be getting what he wanted. But she, and more importantly, Glinda, was about to go walking back into Morrible's hands - in a scant two weeks, as spring finally came in earnest to the Shiz campus. They weren't ready. They were too splintered, too separated, too uneasy. But they would go.


	20. Chapter 19

**~~Elphaba~~**

Glinda was both quiet and not, on the train to the Emerald City - she didn't make a sound, but she somehow managed to be rather loud anyway. Her silent fidgeting and occasional nail-biting rose to the intensity of a thunderstorm in Elphaba's mind, and the silence began to buzz in her ears loudly enough to drown out the clacking of the train wheels and the hissing vibrations of the engine. She managed, just, not to tell Glinda to please please sit still, but by the time they were an hour out of Shiz she absolutely had to lay a hand on Glinda's thigh and firmly stop its motion.

"Sorry," Glinda almost whispered. It had been so long since either of them had spoken that her voice had to slide its way through the palpable buzzing silence to reach Elphaba's ear. Elphaba cleared her throat.

"Nervous?" she asked.

"Of course." Glinda sighed and one hand lifted to her mouth, one perfectly shaped fingernail finding its way briefly between her teeth. Glinda never _really_ bit her nails, of course, but sometimes she simply nibbled at them as if the less-damaging act were equally soothing to her nerves. "I wonder if . . ."

There had been a lot of half-finished sentences lately. Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "You wonder what?"

"I think - I think maybe there's something I should tell you before we get there. But I'm not sure."

Elphaba's heart raced so suddenly that she felt certain Glinda would be able to see it practically leaping from her chest. "What is it?"

"It's about Morrible." Glinda frowned down at her lap. "I think. I _think_ it's just Morrible."

Well of _course_ it was Morrible. "What about her?"

"I think - she, well . . ." Glinda looked up at Elphaba and her frown deepened. "No, I think I must be wrong. Never mind."

"No - Glinda." Elphaba hesitated with her hand half-extended, not sure if it would help or hurt for her to touch Glinda right now. "You don't have to be sure, to tell me about it. You know that - we've made a lot of guesses since this all started. If you've thought of something, or - if Morrible - said something, or told you something that I don't know about - you have to tell me, we have to help each other or . . ." Or. There was no "or," at least not one that she was willing to say out loud.

"This is different." Glinda's eyes had fallen to her lap again.

"How?" Glinda didn't reply, and Elphaba tried a different tack, trying and failing to keep a note of fear out of her voice. "Something about us? Something she wants you to do? Something about the people they have working for them at school? What?"

"None of that - nothing like that. I don't think." She didn't lift her eyes, but her expression and her tone both became slightly reproachful. "I would tell you something like that, right away."

"Then what?" Elphaba couldn't think of much that Glinda would be afraid to tell her, anything that she would hesitate to say to Elphaba. Unless she had done something that Elphaba would disapprove of, and even then it would have to be _bad_.

"It's something about me - she's confused about something, about me, she . . ." Glinda reached over and took Elphaba's hand, and Elphaba tried not feel as if she were being deliberately distracted. "It's nothing really, it's just a feeling I have. I just - if it turns out I'm right, or if it seems to be important, I swear I'll tell you."

"You can't tell me now?" Elphaba asked quietly.

"It would - it might -" Glinda bit her lip and looked away, out the window. "It's something that might change things, if I told you. I don't know what you would think, or - do."

"And you don't think I should have the right to decide?"

Her tone had been too sharp; Glinda turned to meet her gaze with wide, frightened eyes. "I - it's - I don't -"

"Never mind." She laced her fingers carefully through Glinda's. "I'm sorry."

"No. It's all right." Glinda slid her fingers back and forth lightly, which had the effect of stroking Elphaba's between them. "It's not really _about_ you, you see, it's - I think it's a secret."

"A secret between you and Morrible?"

"No. A secret of just mine. Or she thinks there is, she thinks she knows a secret of mine. Something I might not ordinarily have told you anyway, understand? but she thinks she can use it. Or - that's my guess. So if I have to, I'll tell you about it, but if I don't have to - because you see, the secret itself doesn't really have anything to do with us or the Wizard or politics or Morrible or anything. Just me."

A feeling of guilt was beginning to eat slowly at Elphaba. This was something she hadn't contemplated while she was wondering whether Glinda might have been enlisted to Morrible's side in some way, whether she was keeping a secret relevant to their plight - that Morrible might in fact just be blackmailing her, or trying to, with a personal secret. She hadn't been doing it overtly if Glinda wasn't yet certain of what was happening, but still, it was something Elphaba should have thought of before she started suspecting Glinda.

On the other hand, did she have any real guarantee that Glinda was immune to blackmail? It was something, she supposed, that Glinda had promised to tell her everything if it became important.

"So," she said slowly, "if she tries - if you think she's trying to use this, to get you to do something or -"

"I'll tell you. I promise."

"I wish -" Elphaba bit back the rest of her sentence.

"You wish what?"

"Nothing. That we didn't have to worry about any of this, that's all." It wasn't true - she had been about to say that she wished Glinda felt she could tell her the whole truth. It wasn't so long ago that Glinda had been talking about best friends sharing secrets and insisting that she wouldn't keep anything from Elphaba.

By now they were both almost used to their escort of guards - although Glinda took Elphaba's hand when the guards appeared, and Elphaba didn't think it was for Glinda's comfort - and the rest of the routine was becoming unfortunately familiar. The hotel was the same. The room wasn't, but the one enormous bed was a recurring feature. Between Morrible and the damned bed, in fact, Elphaba was beginning to wonder how it was possible that Glinda hadn't yet guessed, hadn't figured out what Morrible and the Wizard believed about their relationship. Really, and the Wizard said _Elphaba_ wasn't subtle. Perhaps subtlety was more valued in witches than in press secretaries.

Apparently by now they were trusted to show up; no one demanded to see them at the Palace that very night. They were left to their own devices until the following morning. Given that they knew more or less what to expect, the politics and secrets and conspiracies aside, and that nothing truly terrible had happened to them on their last visit, they were both calm enough at least to venture from the hotel and to manage to eat. Glinda had even stopped mentioning that she was thoroughly tired of green, although that might just have been tact on her part (Elphaba did notice that she managed to order exclusively non-green vegetables in the restaurant).

Spring came sooner to the Emerald City than to Shiz, and all around them people were outside enjoying the mild evening - quite a difference from their very first trip, when the streets had been all but deserted at this hour. They ate at a restaurant that seated them outdoors, and even Glinda's nervous fidgeting was almost stilled by the time they'd finished a glass of wine each. "I haven't forgotten my promise, you know," she said, running her fingers over the tablecloth and kicking Elphaba gently under the table, "to invite you to Gillikin this summer."

"What made you think of that?"

"The wine."

"Oh."

Glinda looked at her across the table with an expression that was both soft and also somewhat sad. "You know," she said, "I - missed you."

Elphaba didn't have to ask what she meant. She nodded slightly and said, "I'm sorry."

"I know. I wish -" She laughed and picked up her fork delicately. "I like watching all these people, who _aren't_ stuck in the middle of a political strategy. Must be nice."

"They are stuck in it," Elphaba said. "They just don't know about it."

"Maybe. But even so." Glinda's leg began to move idly and Elphaba once again fought the urge to still it. "I keep thinking of the first time we came here, when we talked about living together in the City after school . . ."

"I'm fairly sure we _will_ be," Elphaba pointed out.

"And yet." Glinda's expression was dreamy as she stared out into the sea of green. "It's just a bit tainted, isn't it? I was thinking it would be nice not to know that."

"It was nice not to know that. I remember enjoying it."

"Do you ever wish -"

"I think I've made a personal vow to stop wishing," Elphaba said before Glinda could finish. "It doesn't seem to have gotten me very far."

"Hmm," Glinda said.

Glinda was in bed before Elphaba, and Elphaba had to school herself all over again not to feel awkward. She and Glinda had by now shared a bed so many times since their first trip to the City together, but that was before all of the suspicion in Elphaba's mind and Glinda's strange distance and her secrets that she couldn't share, back when Glinda pounced on her at least once a day and thought nothing of kissing her goodnight, back when they actually finished more than half of their sentences and answered each other's questions. Elphaba slid into the bed and felt rather cold when Glinda didn't move closer to her.

**~~Glinda~~**

Elphaba had gone off somewhere with the Wizard. Glinda had stopped worrying very much about her when this happened, since Elphaba had told her after their last visit that he had mostly wanted just to talk with her - about slightly strange things sometimes, but nevertheless. She wasn't certain, however, whether she should be warmed or offended by the look of abject fear that had come over Elphaba's face when they were told that Glinda would be spending her day alone with Madame Morrible - was Elphaba afraid _for_ Glinda, or afraid that Glinda would do something stupid?

At any rate, Madame Morrible didn't seem terribly interested in conducting a sorcery class today. She spent the first several minutes of their time together pacing in a circle around Glinda, seemingly studying her, although to what end Glinda couldn't think. Finally she asked, "Glinda, dear, are you _entirely_ certain that this is the life you would choose for yourself?"

Glinda had to twist around and look over her shoulder in order to frown at Morrible; the woman's orbit had her still somewhere behind Glinda. "Excuse me?"

Morrible kept walking; Glinda had to switch to the other shoulder in order to keep looking at her. "It's just that it doesn't seem entirely suited to you, you know, all this _mess_ - politics and all." The hard c in "politics" was so very harsh that Glinda's teeth hurt.

"Last time," she said, "you told me I was perfect for it."

"Perfectly suited to be a spokesperson, yes, you are that. Provided you know what to say." Morrible had come around in front of Glinda again; she pressed one finger to her lips and stared thoughtfully somewhere in the region of Glinda's feet. "But are you quite certain that you wouldn't prefer a more peaceful existence?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean." Glinda fought the urge to fidget.

"Well." Morrible looked as if she had just had a revelation. Glinda suspected that was not the case. "Marriage, for one thing. Haven't you thought about it?"

Now Glinda was truly confused, and a little bit concerned. "Are you saying that I can't ever get married if I -"

"Oh, no, of course not, my dear. But you know, many girls of your age are looking forward to marrying as soon as possible - I'm sure that some of your friends back at home are married already."

"Yes, they are. But -"

"And you do have such an eligible potential partner, do you not?"

"I do?"

"Well of course, Prince Fiyero -"

"Oh." Glinda allowed herself the luxury, at least, of shifting from one foot to the other. "No, Madame Morrible. We're not - er - you're mistaken, I'm afraid."

Morrible's painted eyebrows lifted. "No? You've changed your mind about him?"

She hesitated for only a breath. "He changed his mind about me."

"Pity. Still, a pretty girl like yourself, and you still have two years of school left."

Glinda planted herself firmly on both feet. "Madame, I don't understand. I thought everything was all settled here. I don't _want_ to go off and get married instead." That was entirely true - while she wasn't confident that she could handle any of this, and she was still rather frightened of most of it, and a lot of it seemed extremely unpleasant, she couldn't say that the idea of pledging herself to the first man who came along was a much pleasanter prospect.

Morrible smiled, but slowly. "Just making absolutely certain, my dear. That you know exactly what you're getting into, and that you do have other alternatives."

Glinda could only imagine what they would do if she chose one of those "other alternatives" - spell her back into last autumn so she'd forget everything she'd seen, probably. "I'm certain," she said.

"Good. Because, you know, it's not an unrewarding life."

"I - didn't think it was."

"No. Not like Miss Elphaba, eh - always so serious, that girl. You'd think everything was meant to be a trial."

Now Glinda had really no idea of what Morrible meant by any of this. "Well," she said, "she's had more trials than most."

"Oh, I know how loyal to her you are, and it's a credit to you. But she doesn't understand your particular trials, does she?"

"My trials?"

"Can you honestly say that you think she understands the things that concern you, the things that make you unhappy?"

Glinda looked down, twisted her fingers together. "Sometimes," she said. "Not all of them I suppose. But we're different. I don't understand all the things that concern her, either."

"Of course not. Different people can provide each other with different things."

Glinda wrinkled her nose. "Sorry?"

"Why don't you come along with me, and I'll see if I can show you what I mean." Morrible gestured for Glinda to walk ahead of her out of the room, and after a moment's hesitation Glinda did. "You see," Morrible continued as they started down the marble hallway, "I want for you to realize that by joining us here, you will have access to such an enormous variety of . . . resources. Things you might never experience outside of this palace."

All of this sounded both ominous and reasonable. Obviously she would have access to greater resources living in the palace than outside it, so Morrible must have had some specific reason for pointing this out. But what?

At the end of the hallway they walked through a set of garden doors and stepped onto a marble-and-emerald balcony, high above the main square that sat in front of the palace. A light breeze ruffled Glinda's hair as she stepped closer to the rail to look down on the City.

"This, of course," Morrible said, "is where official proclamations are made. You'll be spending quite a bit of time here, with all of the Emerald City - all of Oz, even - gazing up at you." She was leaning against the rail at the other end of the balcony, watching Glinda.

After a moment, Glinda turned. "Why are you showing this to me?" she asked.

"Because you've been working so hard. To show you the rewards that wait if you continue to do as we ask - that's all."

Glinda looked out over the City again. The sun was bright at this time of day; she could feel the top of her head beginning to warm. Its light refracted in brilliant rainbow patterns off the sparkling emerald of the buildings around her and her eyes swirled with the patterns. She began to feel a bit dizzy with the height and the colors and the heat. Her hands tightened their grip on the railing. "And Elphaba?" she asked.

"What about her?"

"I will be with her, won't I? I mean - you haven't said much about her, in all this." _Your dreams, Glinda_, she told herself firmly, although her head was beginning to swim. _Remember that Elphaba wasn't there._

"Of course you will," Morrible said, and Glinda turned and looked into her eyes to try to detect any trace of duplicity. The blinding light all around her made it difficult. "I just want to make sure you remember that she isn't the only one on your side, you see. You can have all you could ever possibly want, my dear, it's all within your reach."

"Of course," Glinda murmured without conscious thought. "I understand." Mostly she wanted Morrible to stop talking and let her _think_; she was feeling so terribly foggy. It wasn't unlike the time she and Elphaba had drunk their way through a bottle of wine, actually - she felt the same warmth, the same pleasant lightheadedness, the same delicate thrumming of sensation. She wondered if she might be getting sunstroke. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I think I'd better go back inside. The sun . . ."

"Of course."

The guards in the hallway stood up straighter as they walked past, and Glinda noticed this time how really handsome they all were - she wondered if it were some sort of requisite for joining the Guards, or at least for serving in the formal parts of the palace? That sense of power, of energy pulsing through her body increased; she caught her lower lip between her teeth as she looked at them, and one of them blushed. Morrible was talking quietly beside her, saying something about the merits of being unattached in a city such as this, the power of Glinda's imminent position, the _access_, the pleasures of the City, the _interest_ that all these things might hold for a young woman who knew her own mind . . . Glinda didn't understand much of it, but she was having a hard time concentrating on Morrible's words anyway. Her head was spinning so terribly - she wasn't sure whether she liked it or not . . .

At some point Morrible dismissed her, she supposed, because she was leaving the palace and no one was stopping her. The sun was going low, it was early evening, Elphaba would be returning to the hotel as well, the air should have been cooler but around Glinda it was all so warm, even the slightest breeze was so noticeable in all this heat that it felt like a caress. The guards were all looking at her as she walked past and images filled her head, images that should have made her blush especially considering her reaction even to Fiyero's rather chaste attentions, but this was different, she was mature and sophisticated, it was teeth scraping lightly against her throat, hands twisted and tangled in her hair, fingers nimbly freeing her from her elegant gown, the soft-rough rasp of a tongue against her skin . . .

The looks on the faces of the gate guards as she passed made her weak in the knees, but somehow she managed to walk. Down the half-block, toward the hotel, amid the throngs of people all looking at her, all adoring, any one dying to . . . the doorman at the hotel offered a hand to help her inside and she shuddered as the touch passed through her entire body, her mind full, filled with hands cupping her breasts, finding delicate flesh and stroking it into responsiveness, hard muscles against her stomach, the scrape of fresh beard-stubble against her skin, hair brushing against her inner thighs, a tongue stirring her into fire, into pure need, into agony, _power_ . . .

She managed to open the door and stood gasping, eyes finding Elphaba across the room as the door shut behind her. She must have been back for a while already, Glinda's muddled, sex-fogged brain told her - she must have been worried, she was frowning in concern, she had already bathed, her hair hung long and damp over her bare shoulders and wetted the front of her shift, making it cling to her body - Glinda suddenly wondered with a morbid, throbbing curiosity what would happen if Elphaba touched her while she had gotten herself into such a _state_ -

But of course when Glinda was looking like this, flushed and disheveled and breathing hard, there was no chance Elphaba would _not_ touch her - she wouldn't understand, she was worried, she was coming over now, stretching out a hand - of course she would touch her, unless Glinda told her not to - she should tell her not to -

Elphaba's outstretched hand brushed against the inside of Glinda's elbow, went to take hold of her arm - the throbbing soaring _fire and power_ spread throughout Glinda's body - she heard herself cry out - and the world went black.


	21. Chapter 20

_Thank you so much, everyone who's been reading and leaving your comments - I can't usually reply because I'm almost always at work :), but I really appreciate you all letting me know that you're into the story!_

**~~Glinda~~**

She entered consciousness slowly, peering downward through half-open eyelids. She was flat on her back - tucked in to the bed, it seemed - and apparently dressed in just her shift. Her feet brushing against the sheets felt bare. She blinked until she was able to make out the rest of the room, and Elphaba sitting in a chair with her feet pulled up to her chest.

"What happened?" Glinda asked after swallowing a few times.

Elphaba turned quickly and came to sit on the bed beside Glinda. Her hair had mostly dried, Glinda noticed - it must have been a while. "You fainted, I think," she said, her brow creasing in concern. "And then - it was like you came around, but you weren't _awake_ - like you were sleepwalking or something."

Glinda's face burned, remembering the state she had been in when last she remembered being conscious. "Did I say anything?" she asked, dreading the reply.

"No," Elphaba said, and Glinda breathed a sigh of relief. "I kept asking you what had happened, but you never really woke up." Her hand drifted over Glinda's forehead and her neck - checking for fever, Glinda suspected. "Do you feel all right now?"

"I think so," Glinda said cautiously. Her head seemed clear - and any rate, Elphaba was touching her now and she didn't feel - like _that_, anymore. Even more blood managed to rush to her face. "I think I'm all right." She frowned. "I think my head hurts a little."

"Sorry about that," Elphaba said. "I caught you as well as I could, but you still bumped your head on the door."

"S'all right." Under the sheets Glinda's fingers fidgeted with the fabric of her shift. "You put me to bed?"

"It seemed like the best thing, when you didn't wake up. You didn't seem in danger or anything, just - I don't know, as if you were so sound asleep that nothing could wake you." She laid a light hand on Glinda's stomach through the blankets. "Can you tell me what happened, now? I didn't -" She paused, looking down at where her hand rested.

"What?"

"Well, when I was getting you undressed - I mean to say, it didn't look as though you'd been hurt."

"I wasn't." Her mind flitted, still a bit sleepily, over what she could remember. She lowered her voice, somehow remembering to worry about being overheard. "It was a spell. I think."

"A spell - to make you fall asleep?" Elphaba was whispering now, too.

"No. It was - it made me -" She looked up at Elphaba, her lips parted expectantly but unable to finish. "I can't say."

"You mean you physically can't? Or you're - bound in some way? Or -"

"No." She could feel her face warming again, rapidly. "No, I just mean - it's too . . ." No, she could see that she _had_ to tell Elphaba, this was important, this meant she had been right about Morrible - sort of. "I - it made me . . ."

"You did something?" Elphaba asked gently.

"No. I didn't do anything." _Though you easily could have_, her mind told her. "It was just - it made me feel - I _felt_ . . ." She licked her lips and pushed herself carefully to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. "I was - excited." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

"Excited about what?"

"No," Glinda said without opening her eyes. "I mean - _excited_."

A pause from the unseen Elphaba, and then - "Oh."

Glinda swallowed. "And I couldn't control it," she said. "I couldn't - I felt it starting, but at first it just felt like I was too warm, or dizzy or something - but then - then it was - I couldn't _think_ and I had all these images in my mind of someone . . . _doing_ things to me - but not in a bad way, I wasn't frightened, but I couldn't stop seeing it, either. And then I got back here, and it all just got to be too much, I guess, and -"

"You fainted."

"I guess that's what happened." She opened her eyes, slowly, and met Elphaba's gaze. "When it was starting, Morrible was talking to me about - something about all the pleasures a young woman could find in the City? And something about power?" Her face was on fire, now, and she could feel the heat spreading throughout her body, but Elphaba's look was understanding.

"Why?" she asked. "Why would she want you to -" Suddenly Elphaba stopped, her face paling.

"What?"

Elphaba shook her head quickly. "No, nothing," she said. "Just - it's just so strange."

"It's not that strange," Glinda said quietly. "I think it's what I was talking about yesterday. What she thinks she knows."

An extremely queer look came over Elphaba's face, but she said only, "Oh?"

"She seems to think - I guess it's logical, maybe - that the most important thing to me would be being - attractive, and that she can - influence me if she offers me . . . well, you know . . ."

"The pleasures of the flesh?" Elphaba asked a little dryly.

"Yes, that. Do I really seem that weak, or that - I don't even know -"

"Carnal?" Elphaba suggested, causing Glinda to flush all over again. "No, of course not. She's wrong. And after all, you saw through it, didn't you?"

"Well - I guess. I mean, I was able to realize it was a spell afterwards, so I suppose it probably didn't work exactly right. And it did end when -" But no. The spell wasn't supposed to make her faint. The spell was supposed to keep working, for who knew how long - she had only fainted because of the crashing intensity she had felt, because the sensation just became entirely too much when - when Elphaba touched her. Not the doorman, not anyone else. Just Elphaba. "I know why it didn't work," she said aloud.

"Why?"

"I -" She blinked at Elphaba. How to explain without . . . "Because she thought - she thought that all that . . . well, _sex_, would be enough to make me forget about you, or forget that I was loyal, I guess, to you. But it wasn't. That's why . . ." She couldn't quite say it. "Don't you remember what happened right before I fainted?"

"You came back here?"

"No, _right_ before."

"You shut the door and I . . . I touched your arm?"

"Exactly."

Elphaba frowned. "I touched your arm, so you fainted?"

Glinda almost told her what had happened, what she had felt, _before_ the fainting, but found that she couldn't quite do it. "And me fainting broke the spell," she said instead. "Didn't it."

"I guess." Elphaba's frown cleared a little. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For - a lot of things."

That didn't make much sense, but then, this was all very confusing. "I'm sorry too," Glinda said. "Because you were right, and I should have listened before. Morrible _is_ trying to turn us against each other. Or at least make me forget to care about you."

Elphaba coughed quietly. "Yes. I think that must be true," she said. "I'm still not sure why. Or if the Wizard's involved."

"I think she sees that the Wizard prefers you," Glinda said. "And she wants to use me on her side. Two against two, only not in open conflict."

"Maybe . . ."

"But the point is, it's not going to happen." Glinda sat up further in the bed and leaned closer to Elphaba. "I'm not turning against you, now or ever. I think she just proved she can't even spell me into doing it."

Elphaba looked uncomfortable, but she let Glinda take her hands. "You have to let her think it worked," she said finally.

"How? I'm not going to tell her I - you know, with anyone . . ."

"No, of course not." Elphaba's thumbs stroked absently over Glinda's hands. "I'd act as if you don't remember any of it. Say - if she asks - say you got home very late, and you must have felt ill or something because you don't remember where you'd been. And say - say I was angry with you. For being late."

"All right." Glinda considered that for a moment. "We fought?"

"Maybe?"

"A little bit?" She nodded. "I'll let her think that." She took a deep breath and found that she wasn't really as calm as she had thought. Her breathing was a bit ragged. She felt somehow - loose, limp, as though something very strong had gripped her and then suddenly let go. And her skin tingled in a way she couldn't exactly identify; it wasn't really like anything she had ever felt before. She needed - she didn't know what. She felt weak and sleepy, she felt cold, she felt confused and a bit sad without understanding why.

She looked at Elphaba and saw that Elphaba was looking at her, waiting while Glinda collected herself. She knew what she needed - or she thought she did - but things had been so _strange_ lately. She didn't think Elphaba was angry with her, but something had been wrong for a long while . . . but she was so concerned now, and so sweet, if just a little bit more uneasy around Glinda than usual . . . She tugged on Elphaba's hands and asked softly, "Will you - please - ?"

"Oh. Of course." Elphaba slid further up on the bed and settled in beside Glinda, wrapping long bare arms around her and letting Glinda rest against her. "Better?"

"Yes." Glinda turned her head and tucked herself under Elphaba's chin. This, she thought sleepily, was what Morrible didn't understand. This didn't have anything to do with anything sordid or selfish or with power or politics - very possibly, Morrible just wouldn't ever understand anything like this. What she felt for Elphaba - with Elphaba - had depth. That was what made it different from what Morrible had made her feel earlier.

Elphaba leaned her head against Glinda's and asked, "Are you sure you're all right? After all that?"

"Yes. I'm all right."

A pause, and then Elphaba added, "I'm afraid for you to see her again tomorrow."

"So am I. But I don't have a choice. And at least I know what to expect, sort of."

"Do you think you could resist it, if you knew it was coming?"

That _was_ the question, wasn't it? "I don't know," she said. "At least I would have an idea of what was going on. I think maybe I could try."

She felt soothing fingers stroking through her hair, and Elphaba said softly, "I'm still proud of you, you know."

Glinda nodded against Elphaba's shoulder. "Thanks. Will you -"

"What?"

"Talk to me about something else. Tell me what happened with the Wizard today."

"Oh." She felt Elphaba shifting slightly under her. "It was - strange."

"Bad strange?"

"No, not bad. Just strange. He talked a lot about his _legacy_ and what he wanted to leave behind for the people of Oz . . . and something about building a better road that would connect all the regions with each other and with the Emerald City."

"He talked to you about roads?"

"I don't think it was really about the road. It was . . ." Elphaba sighed. "I don't trust him. But in some ways he seems to trust me, which is -"

"Strange."

"Yes. And - he's nice to me, it's as if - well, and he says things that make me think he would listen to me, really listen, if I said the right things - or maybe if Morrible was just out of the way."

Glinda felt her eyes drifting shut and she settled herself more comfortably against Elphaba. She had the sense that Elphaba was still saying something, quiet and low, but it faded away into the distance as she fell asleep.

**~~Elphaba~~**

This time she had a goal, and the stakes made her nervous. If she played this right, she might be able to help Glinda; if she didn't manage it, she could make things worse. She had to concentrate hard to keep her fingers from fidgeting.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked once she and the Wizard were seated more or less side by side on the steps of his throne.

"Of course you can, Elphaba."

"What exactly are you thinking of, for Glinda?"

The Wizard frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what will she be doing, once we've finished school? You've talked to me a lot about myself, and I respect that you . . . prefer others talk to Glinda, for now -" Secretly Elphaba was beginning to suspect that the Wizard was afraid Glinda would charm him. "- but you haven't talked much even to me about her. I need to - I need to know that there's a plan for her, that she'll be all right."

"Well, of course there's a plan for her. We've been preparing for the two of you all year, haven't we?" He stretched his legs out in front of him. "I imagine we'd all feel more comfortable with the two of you _in_ the Palace, don't you agree?"

Elphaba imagined that by "we all" he meant himself and Morrible, but she nodded.

"And it's a large place, really - there are all sorts of ways we could accommodate both of you, together if you'd prefer."

"We would," Elphaba said.

"A suite then. You'll both be well taken care of, you have nothing to worry about."

"But you will expect her to do something, I assume? That's what I'm wondering about."

"Oh, well - you know I've left that largely to Madame Morrible . . ."

"You don't need another press secretary, though," Elphaba pressed.

"No, I don't." He smiled at Elphaba almost fondly. "You are an interesting team, you know. Beauty and -" She winced, but he finished, "mystery."

"Mystery?"

"Of course I've recognized it's an intriguing possibility, the both of you side-by-side. People would be - interested."

Elphaba tried not to perk up visibly. "So -"

"You win. Next time you come, I will meet with you and Glinda both. Together."

She had _almost_ won, but not entirely. "And - we'll continue to meet with Madame Morrible? Together?"

"You think you need the additional training? She's led me to believe Glinda has some catching up to do first."

Elphaba looked around the deserted throne room and slid closer to him. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity as she leaned close and whispered, "I don't think it's such a good idea for Glinda to be alone with her so much."

"Really?"

"Glinda's very impressionable, and some of the things she's said - well - I wouldn't want her to be confused about who is supposed to have her loyalty - you, or . . ." She bit hard on the inside of her lip, but it looked as though the Wizard had caught her drift. He leaned closer as well.

"You think I have reason to worry?"

"About Glinda, right now? No. But about . . . well, I'd watch my back."

"Is that a warning?" he asked.

"No. Just an observation about the general trustworthiness of people who enjoy power."

The Wizard's eyes went a darker green as she watched, and he nodded. "I will take it under advisement. Since you are the only one of us who seems to know what they've discussed."

"I _don't_ know what they've discussed, exactly. Just the effect it seems to have had on Glinda."

"Good enough." He held out his hand to her. "Shall we shake on it and then carry on with what we were discussing yesterday?"

Elphaba took his hand, but reluctantly. He smiled at her.

"You know, Elphaba," he said, "no father is perfect. That isn't what it's about."

"No," she said. "I suppose not."

She returned to the hotel before Glinda again, which worried her only a little. It was early, after all, and there was nothing necessarily wrong yet. Still, when darkness fell she began to be concerned enough that she put her shoes back on, prepared to go back to the palace and look for her. She had her second shoe almost entirely laced when the door swung open and Glinda practically ran in. Her face was pale and frightened and she was clearly on the verge of tears.

"What happened?" Elphaba asked immediately. She locked the door behind Glinda and tried to lead her to a chair, but Glinda dropped to her knees on the floor and pulled Elphaba down with her. "Was it Morrible?" Elphaba asked, running her hands over Glinda's face and her disheveled hair. "Did she do something? Another spell?"

"Not a spell," Glinda said in a flat, disturbing tone. Her fingers clamped onto Elphaba's shoulders. "She didn't need a spell for this."

Elphaba's blood ran thoroughly cold. "What?" she begged, cradling Glinda's face between her hands. "What did she do?"

"She laughed," Glinda said, "and she said, 'I don't imagine you'll want Elphaba to know about this, will you?'"

Elphaba thought she might have stopped breathing. "Please tell me," she said.

"It's - it was -" Glinda took a deep breath and held tighter, painfully so, to Elphaba's shoulders. "You know how I said yesterday, she was trying to - show me what I could have, to make me forget about being loyal to you? Well, today - I think - today she was showing me what could happen if I didn't do what she wanted . . ."

_No, no, no,_ a voice shouted in the back of Elphaba's mind. Such a thing couldn't possibly happen to Glinda twice, it just couldn't. She pulled Glinda closer and held her as tight as she could. "Tell me."

"Nothing - really - she took me all over the palace, into the basements and the dungeons and things, and - the way they were all looking at me, the guards and the soldiers - not like the ones they have upstairs, but - and I saw in the prison, Elphie, what was going on in there - I was trying to pretend it didn't bother me, you know? But it was - and then she took me out into the City, to this place - an alley, or a street somewhere, and it was dark already and the women there were - well - and, some of the men walking by - she let them think she had brought me there to - that I was . . . some of them touched me, tried to grab me, and she pulled me away - but then she _left_ me there, and told me I could find my way back easily, and that no one - the Wizard would never believe my 'hysterical version of events -'" She choked and buried her face in Elphaba's shoulder. "I'm being a baby, I know," she whispered. "Nothing really happened to me. But it _could_ have, and I'm just - I'm so -"

Elphaba knew with a sudden, complete certainty that the Wizard would not stand for something like this. She also knew that Morrible was right, that he would be so horrified by even the faintest suggestion of something like this - he would _want_ to think Glinda was exaggerating, that she was just a silly, frightened girl unable to handle the less rosy aspects of life.

She knew something else, too - it hit her like a bolt of lightning. No one would ever figure out exactly why some girls Glinda barely knew had suddenly hated her so much that they would set her up to be assaulted - because it wasn't those girls who wanted Glinda broken and frightened and obedient. She still didn't know what Morrible had thought to accomplish by it, but she knew now who had been behind Glinda's ordeal.

She held Glinda away from her and looked into her reddened eyes. "Glinda," she said firmly, "say the word and we leave now."

Glinda lifted one hand and rubbed the moisture from her eyes. "What?" she asked.

"It's your decision to make. You shouldn't have to handle this, this shouldn't happen to you. I talked to the Wizard today and I don't think you'll be alone with Morrible again - but if you want to, if you need to get away, we'll leave right this minute."

"And go where?" Glinda sniffled. "We'll get in trouble."

"Go anywhere. Not back to school of course, but - anywhere you want. Away."

Glinda bit her lip. "You'd do that, even though I made you give it up the first time?"

"You were right then. But this, this is -"

"And it's been going well for you," Glinda said softly. "A little, hasn't it? The Wizard and all. You're so close to getting him to listen to you, to getting what you wanted from the beginning . . ."

"That doesn't matter."

"You'd leave anyway? For me?"

"_Yes_."

"I love you, Elphaba," Glinda said with an intensity that was almost frightening. Elphaba could only freeze as Glinda hugged her hard, burying her face in Elphaba's neck. "And we're staying," she said.

Elphaba finally forced herself to speak. "Are you sure?"

"I have to."

"No, you don't."

"Yes. I do." She turned her head and kissed Elphaba's cheek. "I can't explain. But that's all there is. We have to do this - we have to beat her, Elphie. You know we won't be safe anywhere, really, until we do."

The thing was, Elphaba did know that. She also knew that the Wizard didn't trust her enough to believe her - not just yet. But someday he would.


	22. Chapter 21

**~~Elphaba~~**

Nessa was looking petulant. This was not a surprise.

"Did you have a good trip to the City?" she asked somewhat coldly on seeing her sister entering her room.

Nessa was so entirely divorced from the reality of what Elphaba and Glinda's life with the Wizard was like that it was almost comical. "It was fine," Elphaba replied. "We're back in one piece."

"_That boy_ is still hanging around, you know."

"Which boy?"

"Fiyero's little Munchkin friend?"

"Oh, him." Inwardly Elphaba had to suppress a smile. "I don't actually think Fiyero knows him. But his roommate does."

"Whoever knows him. He won't leave me alone."

Elphaba sat down on the end of Nessa's bed and crossed her legs awkwardly. "He's bothering you?"

"Well . . ." It was clear that Nessa was struggling with fairness. "Not bothering exactly. But he's always _there_ - wanting to talk to me, or walk me somewhere -"

"You don't like him?"

"I don't even know him, Elphaba. So why would he want to hang around me all the time?"

Elphaba fought the urge to point out that Nessa now had her very own Biq. "Do you think you could like him, if you knew him?"

Nessa raised one sharp eyebrow, in that one gesture probably doubling the resemblance between the sisters. "I am not taking boy advice from you, thanks."

Ignoring the jab, Elphaba asked, "Then why did you bring it up?"

"To tell you to get him to leave me alone."

"Do you really want him to leave you alone?"

Nessa practically growled in her frustration. "Elphaba . . ."

"I just think you should give him a chance, that's all."

"So that's what you would do if a boy were chasing you all around school?"

Elphaba bit her lip. "Nessa, that's mean. There's no need for that."

"I didn't mean that." Nessa rolled her chair closer to where her sister sat on the bed. "I just meant -"

"Yeah, I know." Elphaba shrugged. "Look - Rikk -"

"Who?"

"Fiyero's roommate. He said this boy really likes you -"

"He said this to who?"

"To me. He wanted me to talk to you -"

"Kiren did?"

"No, _Rikk_ wanted me to talk to you about Kiren."

"Oh." Nessa frowned down at her lap. "So you're doing this as a favor to . . ."

"Rikk, and no, not really. I'm just saying that's what he told me. I'm talking to you because you're my sister and I'm supposed to look after you."

"So, do you like him?"

Elphaba was beginning to get a headache. "The Munchkin boy?"

"No, Rikk."

"He - seems nice I guess?"

"I mean, is that what this is about? You like him, so . . ."

"Oh. No. I don't like him that way. I only barely know him."

"_I_ only barely know Kiren. You were just telling me I should give him a chance."

"Nessa, this conversation is getting ridiculous. Fiyero's roommate is not interested in me. He's interested in getting his lovestruck friend off his back. And I'm interested in seeing you make new friends and get out sometimes and stop mooning around over -"

"_Don't_ say it."

"Fine, but - would it really be that terrible to talk to him?" Elphaba fumbled for a way to express what she wanted to say without mentioning Boq. "I mean, don't you ever feel sorry for those poor boys who fawn around after pretty girls who won't give them the time of day?"

"I suppose," Nessa said, looking a bit sulky.

"You don't have to make me any promises. Just think about talking to him, maybe, please?"

Nessa sighed. "Fine."

When Elphaba went up to her own room Glinda greeted her with, "I've been thinking about something."

"All right." Elphaba settled herself on her own bed, facing Glinda where she sat perched at her desk. "What?"

"We should have a more comfortable chair in here," Glinda said, looking around the room.

"That's what you were thinking about?"

"No. I was thinking, we're agreed Morrible and the Wizard each want to use one of us. Right?"

"Sort of." Elphaba bent to unlace her shoes. "I don't really think the Wizard knows that Morrible wants to use you for her own purposes, but basically that's right."

"So what's Morrible's plan?" Glinda said rhetorically. "She has to make me more popular with the people than you are."

"Then she will have a very easy time carrying out her plan."

"Shut up, would you?" Glinda left the desk and came to sit at the end of Elphaba's bed instead. "I mean, she has to make sure they like you less -"

"Again - not difficult."

"Shut _up_, Elphie, really. I _mean_, she has to be thinking of making people trust her more than the Wizard. Right?"

"I guess."

"And you're part of that. I think she knows you don't trust her, so she has to make sure the rest of Oz doesn't trust you."

"I agree."

"So this is what I was thinking about." Glinda crossed her legs in front of her on the bed and studied Elphaba. "We have to make you -"

"If you say 'popular,' so help me . . ."

"But I'm right, aren't I?" It was clear that Glinda wasn't waiting for an answer. "This is all about perception and you know it - Morrible's perception of you and me, the Wizard's, the people's perception of both of us - the Wizard's going to be trying to make everyone think of us as wonderful and celebrated and . . . helpful, and Morrible's going to be trying to undermine that."

Elphaba shifted position uncomfortably under Glinda's scrutiny. "So what do you suggest?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought of the solution yet. But I will."

"I'm just glad you realize the entire solution doesn't lie in making me wear ruffles."

"Please Elphie, I know you well enough now to know that you in ruffles would be appalling. But _you've_ also known me long to enough to know that appearance is at least part of the solution."

"Granted," Elphaba said unwillingly, "but what is there to do about it? There's nothing in the world that's going to turn me into -" She gestured. "- you."

"No. But there is something that will turn you into the most irresistible _you_ possible. I just have to think of what it is."

"Glinda . . ." It was clear, at least to Elphaba's mind, that Glinda was trying to distract herself from the many truly disturbing things that had happened on their trip. It was also clear that it wasn't really working, much as Glinda was focused on this new problem. "You know I wish I could take Morrible's focus off you."

"I know." Glinda climbed in a rather un-Glinda-like ungainly fashion up to the headboard to settle beside Elphaba with their shoulders touching. "And you've helped a lot, getting the Wizard to meet with me along with you so I didn't have to be alone with her."

"Still . . ."

"No still. It's unpleasant - more than unpleasant - but we've thwarted her at every turn so far, haven't we?" Glinda patted Elphaba's hand until Elphaba linked their fingers together.

"At every turn we know about," Elphaba pointed out. "We don't know what else she's been up to here."

Glinda leaned her head on Elphaba's shoulder. "Let's think about that later, all right?"

"All right. What do you want to think about now, then?"

"Nothing," Glinda breathed. "Can we just sit here for a while?"

"Of course." Having become accustomed to her role by now, Elphaba held herself carefully still while Glinda adjusted comfortably against her. "It's only a little while till dinner," she said. "Why don't you close your eyes?"

"I'm not tired," Glinda said, but she hadn't been sleeping well at night and already her eyes were drifting shut.

**~~Glinda~~**

She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, heat from the fire wafting over her, eyes pressed tightly shut, concentrating with all her might on the vision in her mind.

On meditation it seemed that the answer had to be _here_, somewhere - somewhere lurking in that night in the Emerald City, when Glinda had been so mixed up and turned around but not everything could have been just what Morrible was making her feel. She had decided that already - Morrible had meant to make her feel something was more compelling than Elphaba, not to make her feel - _that_ way, _about_ Elphaba. Which meant quite simply that something about this situation was stronger than Morrible - easy enough to see. Which meant there was something about Elphaba, even if no one but Glinda had yet seen it. And it had to be tied up in the way she had looked that night when Glinda opened the door, with her hair long and straight and damp and wild and her shoulders bare and her nightshift clinging to her body, plastered in places with the dampness from her hair - certainly she had not looked _pretty_, not pretty like other girls flouncing about in fancy frocks with their hair curled.

That was it, maybe. Elphaba thought she was beneath _pretty_, when really she was past it. Pretty, maybe, was for girls like Nessa. Like Glinda. Perhaps by virtue of her greenness, or perhaps by virtue of her mind, or her sharp jaw and the long line of her nose and the arch of her eyebrows, perhaps Elphaba had been born already too old for pretty. But just old enough for something very different . . .

And certainly it wasn't as if she were unattractive, exactly, not the way ordinary plain girls were. Why, Elphaba would never have noticed it, but in the City sometimes a passing young man - wearing those lovely green glasses that blocked out the singularity of Elphaba's complexion - had turned his head to stare. And not at Glinda. At the dark, mysterious girl who managed to look tall when she wasn't, who looked alternately as if she could start a fire or freeze a river just with her eyes.

Glinda opened her eyes and twisted over her shoulder to look at Elphaba in the firelight. She'd been peacefully asleep for at least an hour, leaving Glinda to her quiet thoughts. In the slowly coming springtime warmth, helped along by the fire Glinda had kept up, heavy blankets and nightclothes were no longer needed and Elphaba's shoulders were left bare by the thin straps of her nightgown. Her back was to Glinda, her hair braided off her neck, the sharp angles and rarer curves of her spine and her shoulder blades exposed in the dancing orange-yellow light. She was lovely like this, like a sleeping dark goddess.

Glinda bit her lip against her own silliness, but maybe that was the answer after all. Elphaba wasn't an earthly beauty, so what? So she'd have to be an _unearthly_ one. Looking unlike anything Oz had ever seen before couldn't be _all_ bad. And looking that way while being slim and more-or-less-strangely graceful and possessing a way of holding people in her gaze - that had a lot of promise.

This would require a bit more thinking about.


	23. Chapter 22

**~~Glinda~~**

One thing at least seemed very clear - Glinda's previous plan to preserve Elphaba's reputation among their fellow students at Shiz was right out. For one thing, it was too important to make Elphaba _liked_, to make her part of the community; Glinda could no longer take the easy way out of pretending that she and Elphaba had no particular friendship. The rumors about their relationship might flare up again, but Glinda was just going to have to try harder to make sure they made the right impression.

The other thing was, well - putting some public distance between herself and Elphaba had seemed a lot easier before their trip to the City. A week ago Elphaba had been distance itself: mysterious, enigmatic, and mostly absent. She'd spent most of her time alone, had told Glinda little about where she went or what she did, and it had seemed that her trust in Glinda was maybe not as complete as it had once been.

But all of that had changed. Since Glinda's experiences with Madame Morrible, and since her mostly-complete confession to Elphaba of what Morrible suspected (Glinda still couldn't bring herself to tell the entire truth), Elphaba seemed to have decided that Glinda should be included in all of her plans. She still spent a great deal of time in the library alone, but now she painstakingly explained every night what she had read, what she was looking for, even when she expected to return to their room. Glinda was beginning to feel a bit like a jealous wife, actually, but she appreciated the care anyway.

On the morning that four of their classmates were arrested, Glinda woke to Elphaba sitting very quietly on the end of her bed watching her. She jumped at the sight of those dark eyes, so probing even from across the room, fixated so intently on her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, struggling to sit up despite the remnants of sleep still on her. Her racing heart was doing a great deal to combat any remaining weariness. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Elphaba replied. "I was just waiting for you to wake up. I wanted to ask you something."

"You could have just woken me." The shock was beginning to make Glinda cranky. "It would have startled me less. Instead of just staring."

"Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, you're nice to stare at."

"That's just creepy, Elphie." Glinda kicked the rumpled bedclothes off her legs and swung her feet down onto the cool wooden floor. "What did you want to ask me?"

"If I could borrow the notes you took on that magic-merging spell. I want to catch up on what you've figured out so far."

"Oh." Both the slowly spreading feeling of awake-and-alertness and the pleasant sensation of Elphaba treating her as knowledgeable combined to dispel some of her grumpiness. "Of course you can. Haven't you had any luck in the library?"

Elphaba shook her head. Glinda noticed that she was already dressed for the day with her shoes on and her hair neatly braided, despite the fact that the sun had barely risen. She must be planning to fit in some research before breakfast. "I think I've been looking in the wrong sections," Elphaba said. "You took some notes on ancient magic, what you remembered from researching your essay?"

"Yes." Glinda rubbed her eyes and tried to smooth her hair. "They're sort of all scattered through the margins of my other notes, though. You'd better take the whole mess - sorry."

"It's all right, I'll read it at breakfast." Elphaba got to her feet and, as an obvious afterthought, came to wrap Glinda in an awkward sideways embrace. "Sorry for waking you. I'll see you in class."

"All right," Glinda said, but Elphaba was already halfway out the door, swinging her satchel over her shoulders as she went. Elphaba might be making more of an effort lately not to exclude Glinda from her plans and her schemes, but that didn't keep Glinda from feeling as if she were always struggling to catch up.

When she arrived in history class Pfannee and Shenshen waved to her, but she only waved back - with a bright, perky smile - and went to sit in her usual place beside Elphaba. Pfannee raised an eyebrow, but Glinda ignored her and, after a moment, let herself reach up and briefly grasp Elphaba's shoulder in greeting. Elphaba gave her a hurried, distracted smile, seemingly unaware that Glinda's simple gesture was as much a political decision as a spontaneous caress.

Which was just as well, of course. The last thing she needed was for Elphaba to start believing that Glinda's behavior toward her was for the benefit of others, and not prompted by actual emotion. Somehow, seeing as it was Elphaba, Glinda wasn't certain how successful she would be in explaining that the political bit was _allowing_ her real affection to show rather than hiding it. And then of course they'd inevitably get to _why_ Glinda would have needed to hide her fondness for Elphaba in the first place, and Glinda might have to explain that it wasn't out of fear that _her_ reputation would suffer from being seen with her green roommate, but rather - better not put herself in a position to be explaining _that_. She had been humiliated enough by having to explain her sexually-prompted near-coma. Explaining this might kill her.

Their lecturer, whose ideas about history still tended to make Elphaba's hand clench on her pen until her knuckles turned white, hadn't progressed very far into his lecture when he was interrupted by a loud bang that seemed to be coming from outside the building. The professor frowned and held up his hand. "Stay in your seats, students," he said, and ran out into the hallway. He returned a moment later and said, "It seems the disturbance is not taking place on the campus. We will resume our discussion of the agricultural techniques of the early Munchkin farmers and their methods for taming wild cattle . . ."

Elphaba's knuckles turned a little whiter. On the bench in front of them Glinda saw Fiyero's roommate, Rikk, cover a laugh with a cough and turn to the student next to him to mouth, "Wild _cattle_?"

"Rampaging Cows," the other boy managed to whisper before he lost control of himself and began to laugh.

"And marauding Chickens, no doubt," Rikk hissed back. Glinda had to cover a smile herself; sure that Elphaba wouldn't appreciate the levity quite as much as she did.

A knock on the door interrupted the lecture again, and the professor ducked out into the hall. When he reentered the room, he looked . . . sly? It didn't make much sense, but he looked almost as if he were hiding a smile. "Class," he said, "we are being dismissed for the afternoon. There has been an . . . incident, in town. I'm sure you'll hear all about it on the grapevine, but suffice to say, the guards are already on the trail of the perpetrators and justice will be done swiftly."

Glinda looked quickly to Elphaba, confused as to what could be making their professor so very pleased. "Elphie," she whispered.

"I don't know," Elphaba replied as the other students began to gather their things together. "We'll find out."

Glinda slipped her hand into Elphaba's, careless of who might see. There was something about this that was making her extremely nervous.

When they left the building, knots of students were out on the lawn, talking. Glinda spotted Boq thick in discussion with a group of other Munchkin students, and after a moment she saw Fiyero and Rikk go to join them. Fiyero quickly moved off toward the dormitories, but Rikk stayed to talk with his fellow Munchkinlanders. When he looked up, his eyes found her and Elphaba and he gave a little wave and came over to them.

"Hello, Elphaba," he said when he was close enough. His eyes slid over to Glinda second, and she found that she didn't actually mind at all, for once. "Hello, Glinda. Well, have you heard?"

"We haven't heard anything," Elphaba said. "What have you found out?" Glinda had almost forgotten they were holding hands, until she felt Elphaba's fingers tighten comfortingly on hers.

Rikk looked at Glinda, then around him, then stepped closer to Elphaba and went so far as to rest a hand on her hip. Shockingly, Elphaba didn't seem to react. "There were three bombings downtown," he said.

"Of Animal businesses?" Elphaba asked in a hushed voice. She stepped even closer to Rikk, but she tugged Glinda closer to her, as well. "Like before?"

"No." Rikk glanced around nervously again. "Berek told me - it was government offices. Like the guard station, and the courthouse. They don't know if anyone was hurt, but they think it was, you know, _them_."

"Them?" Glinda was glad that Elphaba sounded as confused as she felt.

Rikk's chin dropped and he looked at Elphaba through his lowered eyelashes. "Seriously? Are you a Munchkinlander or not?"

"Don't you think there are some things the _governor's daughter_ might not know about?" Elphaba whispered back.

Rikk's eyes flickered toward Glinda again. She was beginning to feel offended. Elphaba pulled their joined hands to rest near her waist and said purposefully to Rikk, "She's all right. What is it?"

"I didn't mean any offense," Rikk said quickly, looking down somewhere around Glinda's feet. "It's just - you being an Uplander . . ."

"What _is_ it?" Elphaba asked impatiently.

"Well. _Them_." Rikk's voice dropped to the smallest whisper, and Glinda had to step closer to hear him. "The Resistance."

Elphaba seemed surprised; she took a tiny step backward and lifted her head to look Rikk in the eye. "Really? Against . . . the Wizard?"

Suddenly Rikk's face went pale, and Glinda realized why at about the same time Elphaba must have. One green hand clamped down on Rikk's arm, preventing him from backing away. "It's all right," Elphaba hissed quietly. "I know we're supposed to be in his pocket, but - it's all right. We're not trouble for anyone, I swear. _I swear._"

Rikk eyed her for a long moment, again nearly ignoring Glinda. "Fiyero trusts you," he said finally.

Elphaba arched an eyebrow. "And you're going to trust his opinion?"

"Shouldn't I?"

Elphaba shrugged. "Well, we are trustworthy, so, I suppose. _Please_."

Rikk's head dropped again so that he was whispering practically into Elphaba's ear. His tone was just loud enough for Glinda to hear as well. "It started in Munchkinland last year, because there was the first place the Animal restrictions started coming in. The Governor had no choice; he didn't even know about most of it until the Wizard's decrees came out. Small things really, at first - Animals had to register; well, humans have birth certificates already anyway, so that didn't seem so strange. Then Animal businesses had to register. Then farms were regulated so strictly that no Animals could run one, basically."

"How?" Glinda was glad that Elphaba had asked, because she didn't understand either.

"Rules about growing any kind of food crop if you have hooves. Rules about cleanliness that implied anyone with fur couldn't grow crops. That kind of thing. Little but deadly over time, until no Animal farmers could stay afloat. Most of them left. That's when the Resistance was formed."

"I didn't know," Elphaba whispered, looking aghast. "I thought, when I got here - I didn't know it started at _home_."

"Doesn't everything?" Rikk asked sardonically. "Anyway - word is, the Resistance attacked those buildings downtown today, in retribution for the Animal businesses that were blown up in the fall."

"Then why are we out of class?" Glinda asked. "If it was only downtown."

Rikk turned bright eyes on her suddenly and she almost took a step back. "I don't know," he said. "But if I had to guess, I'd say we're in for trouble."

That night, just after dinner, guards came and dragged four senior students - two boys and two girls - from the campus, with bayonets drawn, howling for blood like a pack of wolves. From where Glinda stood on the darkening lawn, with the absurd smell of cherry blossoms drifting on the night air, she could see Rikk casting meaningful looks in her direction. _Trouble_, he mouthed, before fading away into the crowd of students who had gathered to watch the spectacle.

Glinda mostly felt sick. Watching those students being dragged away meant, to her, only one thing - _that could have been Elphaba, that _was_ Elphaba, whatever's going to happen to them almost happened to her_. She remembered the wrenching fear she had felt, the sobs that had choked her throat, the marks from the tips of the bayonets visible on Elphaba's body once everything was over and done with. She gripped Elphaba's hand like a lifeline and finally had to turn away, pressing her face into Elphaba's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Elphaba whispered, her fingers in Glinda's hair, although Glinda could tell from her detached tone and the tilt of her head that she was still watching herself, watching the guards leading the suspected Resistance members from their campus. "You shouldn't be seeing this. You're too innocent for this."

Glinda wondered, really, whether she was very innocent at all anymore. But she slid her arm around Elphaba's waist and said, desperately wishing for it to be true, "We're _all_ too innocent for this."

"That's true," Elphaba said without inflection.

Glinda tightened the grip of her arm and asked, "Can we go home, please?"

"Of course we can." Elphaba turned in Glinda's embrace so that Glinda didn't have to face the sordid scene again, and wrapped her own arm around Glinda's waist. "Let's go. I've seen enough."

As they passed Rikk, he nodded to Elphaba meaningfully, and she nodded back.


	24. Chapter 23

**~~Elphaba~~**

She tried to make her way quickly from literature class, knowing that Glinda was more than usually jumpy these days and reacted rather badly to Elphaba coming home later or slower than expected. It was all the more disturbing because she didn't cry, or scold, or cling when Elphaba did return - all things Elphaba had experienced before. She would simply _look_ at Elphaba and nod with her jaw set and her eyes dark, and say calmly something like, "You haven't been arrested, then?" And then she wouldn't speak for at least an hour. Elphaba was beginning to think fondly on the crying and the scolding.

But as she was trying to edge her way toward the door, a firm hand closed over her elbow. Fiyero. "I need to show you something," he said under his breath, his lips barely moving, as he dropped his satchel over his shoulder.

"Does it have to be now?" she asked, not taking the time to apologize or even really to feel guilty for the sharpness of her tone.

"Yes," he said emphatically. "It's important."

She made for the door again, pulling him along with her. "Can you show me while we walk?"

"What are you in such a hurry for?"

She dropped her voice, looking carefully at the other students rushing past them. Most if not all of them were too pleased to be released from class to be paying any attention to Elphaba and Fiyero. "Ever since those students were arrested last week, Glinda gets very nervous when I'm late."

"She's got you on a short lead," Fiyero marveled.

"Are you entirely heartless, or just very good at faking it?"

"Both?" He tugged on her arm. "Come on, Elphaba."

"I'd just rather not put up with the look on her face - can we go, please?"

"Fine, but -" He let himself be dragged toward the classroom door and didn't finish his sentence until they were outside. "Aren't you working _for_ the Wizard? Why would she expect you to be arrested?"

"It's Glinda; she doesn't _need_ a reason." Now she did feel guilty - she slowed her pace slightly and added, "Anyway, you know we can't really trust anyone. Or anything. Anything could happen any minute."

"That's cheery. But -" He pulled at her hand and led her around a corner, away from the exit to the building. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. What I wanted to show you."

"What?" Now she was concerned - she didn't know what she had thought before, but honestly it hadn't entered her mind that Fiyero might actually need to show her something important.

He shook his head. "Not here. If you're in a rush to get back to Glinda, can you meet me later? Somewhere no professors will see us?"

The look on his face was suddenly intense, serious. She found herself nodding slowly. "I guess. Where?"

"Well." He looked away from her, biting his lip. "The library?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, Fiyero, but there are usually quite a lot of professors in the library."

"My dormitory?"

"Are you insane? Trying that once was enough for me."

"Yours then."

Elphaba hesitated. Certainly she was much more willing to risk Fiyero getting caught running across campus after curfew than herself, and he had proven himself rather adept at getting in and out of their room. "Is it something Glinda can hear?"

"That depends on exactly how skittish she's been lately."

Elphaba frowned at him. "She's nervous, but she's not a child. If it's not some kind of secret only I can hear, then she can handle it."

"I figured you'd tell her anyway, if you thought it was best." He nodded quickly, decisively, and pushed off from the wall he had been leaning against. "Tonight then. Make sure Glinda's expecting me too, so I don't scare her."

"All right." This side of him, seen so much more often lately - the serious side, the side that cared, that worried about whether he would frighten Glinda - so distracted her that she almost forgot the thought that had crossed her mind while they were talking. By the time she remembered he had started to walk away, and she had to reach after him and grab his sleeve.

"What?" he asked, turning back to face her.

"Your roommate."

His face went oddly blank. "What about him?"

"He's - he said something to us . . ." She paused and started over. "Do you trust him?"

"I guess."

"I mean would you trust him with - with something like whatever you're going to show me."

"Oh." His hesitation was just long enough for her to notice that she was still holding onto his arm, and to drop her hand quickly. "I'm not sure."

Her other hand, the one that had been resting on her satchel, rose to her lips and she took one nail gently between her teeth - Glinda's gesture, she realized as soon as she did it. "All right," she said.

"It's not that I _don't_ trust him," Fiyero explained, frowning in concentration at the brick wall next to his face. "I just don't know enough about him, really, to know if I trust him with that sort of thing." Elphaba nodded, and Fiyero added, "You know - for that matter - how do you know you can trust me, with that sort of thing?"

"I have no idea," Elphaba said after thinking about it for a moment. "I suppose we just do."

"We?"

"Me and Glinda."

"Of course." He reached out and patted her shoulder awkwardly. "See you later."

When Elphaba had made her rather confused way back to her room, Glinda was sitting up at her desk with a small fortress of spellbooks surrounding her. She lifted her head as Elphaba entered, that horrible hard look on her face, and Elphaba tried desperately to forestall whatever she was going to say by crying out, "I'm sorry - Fiyero needed to tell me something."

Glinda closed her mouth for a moment before speaking. "What?"

"He said he had to tell me - us - in private. He's coming here later."

Glinda glanced around their room in quick alarm. "Here?"

"Yes." Elphaba dropped her satchel on her bed and sat down to unlace her shoes. "He has been here multiple times before."

"Yes, but I've got - _things_ everywhere."

Despite the seriousness of the day's conversations, Elphaba had to grin at the look on her roommate's face. "They're called books, Glinda. All evidence to the contrary, I don't actually think he's disgusted by them."

"I don't mean that." Glinda sighed and set down the papers in her hand, running her fingers through her hair. Even slightly tumbled it was still, of course, perfectly beautiful. "And I don't - I mean, it's not that I care what he thinks. Anymore. It's just - I hate to be sloppy."

"Well, I doubt he'll come until after curfew anyway and it's not even dinnertime yet. We've got plenty of time." Pushing her shoes aside, Elphaba picked her way across the room in bare feet and leaned over Glinda's shoulder. "What are you studying?"

"Are you trying to distract me?" Glinda asked, craning her neck to peer up at Elphaba.

"Yes."

"Well. All right." She found Elphaba's hand and tugged her down so that she was kneeling next to Glinda's chair. "Not terribly subtle, are you?"

"You don't exactly require subtle," Elphaba said immediately, much more harshly than she had intended. She drew in a hissing breath and winced inwardly, waiting for Glinda's response.

Glinda looked down at her for a moment and clearly stopped before saying the very first thing that had come to her lips. Instead, after a beat, she said, "What was that for?"

"I'm sorry," Elphaba said reflexively, gritting her teeth.

"No, you're not."

"_Glinda_."

"No, of course you are. But what - _why_?"

"I -" Elphaba shook her head, feeling the words dry up. "I don't know, I'm sorry."

"Elphie -"

"What were you going to say?"

Glinda was drawn up short. "What?"

"A minute ago, you were going to say something else. What was it?"

Glinda's eyebrows drew together as she looked down at Elphaba. Finally she said, "I'm not that simple."

"I didn't say you were, but I could tell you were going to say something else and you stopped, so -"

"No, that's what I was going to say. I'm not that _simple_, Elphaba." Her tone bit sharply, much more sharply than she had managed in a long time.

"I don't - think you are."

"You do, a little." Glinda crossed her arms over her chest and continued to glare downward, her eyes effectively keeping Elphaba in place on her knees on the wooden floor. "Don't manage me."

"I -" Elphaba was beginning to feel eerily like Fiyero - like any boy, she supposed, when faced with Glinda. Or possibly with any girl, in an argument. "I'm sorry?"

"Don't apologize if you don't know what for." Glinda's arms clenched more tightly with anger, but she looked as if she might suddenly start to cry.

"I do know what for." Elphaba's instinct was to get up and put her arms around Glinda, but she stayed where she was. "And I'm sorry, but if you're going to react so badly every time I come in late, or every time you don't know where I am, then you _need_ to be managed." Too much, she knew right away. She almost flinched, half expecting Glinda to slap her.

Glinda inhaled with a little gasp, and her lower lip turned white as she bit down on it. At last she asked, "How long have you been wanting to say that?"

"I haven't -" Giving up, Elphaba rocked back over her heels and sat down on the floor. "Don't make it like that. It's just not fair of you, to accuse me of trying to manage you when you need such careful treatment or you get angry with me, Glinda. And you know it."

Glinda turned her head away furiously and stared at the window. "I don't mean - you know I don't mean to try to - tell you what to do, or . . ."

"I know," Elphaba said, forcing her voice to gentleness despite the quick, not entirely logical anger that she could still sense in herself. "But effectively -"

"I know. I _know_." Glinda lifted one foot and propped it against the desk; apparently Elphaba was not the only one who had accidentally adopted her roommate's mannerisms. The thought, oddly, cooled some of her anger. "I'm just so afraid, all the time," Glinda continued, absently, her sternly controlled voice completely at odds with the color flooding her cheeks as Elphaba looked at her. "I don't mean - you're right, I suppose I've been managing _you_, haven't I, by being so ridiculous."

"You're not being ridiculous," Elphaba said softly. "But -"

"But it can't go on, I know. I know." Glinda rubbed one hand over her eyes, and now Elphaba did clamber to her feet. But Glinda held out her hand to stop Elphaba before she came any closer. "No, don't," she said. "I can't be - I don't want you to have to baby me."

"That's not what I was doing."

"Yes it is, Elphie, and if I do manage you by getting upset over things, then you know just as well that you _let_ me."

Elphaba stopped, considering. "Yes. I suppose."

"So don't. I'm supposed to be able to help, to be your partner, with the Wizard and everything, not to - fall apart and need you to take care of me."

"All right," Elphaba said, uncertain of what else she was supposed to say, or do. "But -"

"But _what_?"

"Well, I'm not going to just ignore you if you do -" Not "fall apart," even Elphaba knew that would be the wrong thing to say. "If you're upset by something. I'm - your friend, not your drill master."

"I know that. I guess. I'm just trying to blame you for the way I've been acting." Glinda shrugged. "I'm not much for subtlety either." Elphaba smiled, and Glinda said, "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"Are you under the impression that you did?"

Glinda blinked. "Didn't I? I wanted to."

Now Elphaba had to fight not to laugh and insult her. "You can now, if you want."

"Oh, never mind." Glinda waved a hand. "The moment's passed."

Elphaba stepped forward finally and reached out, and Glinda held up her hand again to interrupt. "No, really -"

"It's not to baby you," Elphaba said immediately. "Just -"

"Just what?"

Elphaba took a step away, feeling rejected. "We had a fight, then we made up. I think. I just thought - I don't know, I haven't had a lot of friends to fight with before, maybe I was wrong."

"Oh." With one last rub at her eyes Glinda stood and came closer, wrapping her arms around Elphaba. "You're right, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for how I reacted, before."

"I'm sorry I was - harsh." Elphaba let her chin rest on Glinda's shoulder and felt a gentle hand on the back of her head. "You know I don't think you're simple. At all."

"I know. And I earned it, anyway." Glinda turned her head and pressed a tiny kiss to Elphaba's cheek. "I love you," she said softly.

Elphaba nodded fiercely, though she was unable to say anything. She blinked back uncomfortable tears and waited for Glinda to move away.

**~~Glinda~~**

Fiyero appeared not long after curfew, just as Elphaba had predicted. Glinda fought - successfully - the urge to fix her skirt, to smooth her hair, to sit at her best angle, while he was there. She didn't feel especially (or even a little bit) flirtatious, but her pride was a powerful motivator. Still. _Not a prince_, she told herself firmly. _Not a boy. Just a person. A person who wants to help us._

Fiyero was perched uncomfortably on the edge of Elphaba's desk, handing her a folded piece of paper without speaking. Elphaba glanced at Glinda as she unfolded it. "What is this?" she asked after clearing her throat quietly.

"Political science assignment," Fiyero said. "We got it this morning."

"It was your political science professor, wasn't it?" Glinda asked from her position on the end of her bed - the first time she had let herself speak since he climbed into the room. "That you and Elphaba saw sneaking around the Animal housing that night."

"Yes," Fiyero said, and Elphaba nodded as her eyes scanned the paper. From the look on her face, Glinda could tell that something was wrong.

"What, Elphie?" she asked.

Elphaba cleared her throat again and held the paper out at a distance. Her glasses sat folded on her nightstand, and she seemed a bit uncomfortable with trying to read the words on the page. "Research assignment," she read slowly and distinctly. "Exploring governmental methods of monitoring illegal and subversive activity by - my goodness, does she really expect not to get caught? Giving something like this to students?"

"_What_, Elphaba?" Glinda repeated.

"I think she doesn't have to worry about getting caught," Fiyero said, his tone grim. He looked over at Glinda and explained, "She wants us to spend the next two weeks observing any suspicious activity among our fellow students, or faculty members, or just people in town, and report on anything we notice. All for the sake of 'research,' of course."

"And if someone does happen to realize that she's scrounging for real information, who cares?" Elphaba said. "What could possibly be wrong with being patriotic and serving Oz, and the Wizard?"

"Except that it's asking students to report on one another," Fiyero said. "I thought you'd be interested."

"I bet she wouldn't have done it," Glinda said, the thought suddenly strikingly obvious, "if you had been in the class, Elphaba."

"Or you." Elphaba was still frowning down at the paper in her hands, but Glinda felt the full force of the absent-minded compliment anyway. "I wonder . . ."

"What?" Glinda and Fiyero both asked at the same time.

Elphaba's head lifted and she tried to encompass them both with her gaze. "If she gave this assignment specifically because of Fiyero. Knowing he knows us."

"Expecting him to report on us." Glinda captured her thumbnail between her teeth and worried at it with slight pressure. "It seems likely. Or at least possible."

"I hope it goes without saying," Fiyero said, "that I have no intention of telling her, or anyone, anything about either of you."

"Of course." Elphaba wasn't paying much attention to him at the moment, but Fiyero didn't seem to mind terribly.

"You are going to have to tell her something," Glinda pointed out. "About _somebody_. You can't just come back at the end of two weeks and tell her you're completely unobservant."

"Well," Elphaba started, and Fiyero, without ceremony, smacked her shoulder with the back of his hand. "Oh, don't pretend to be offended," she said. "It's not as if you've worked on making a reputation for scholarly concentration. Anyway," she added, looking to Glinda, "it's not Fiyero's powers of observation that I'm worried about. It's everyone else's."

"I'm confused," Fiyero admitted.

"Me, too," Glinda said. Their eyes met over Elphaba's head, and he gave her a tiny smile.

Elphaba twisted to look at Fiyero over her shoulder. "How many students are in that class?"

"Fifteen," he replied.

"Fifteen people," she echoed, turning her attention to Glinda. "Fourteen, not counting him, all looking out and reporting on any signs of 'subversive' activity by their fellow students."

"Not all of them will be." Glinda let her eyes flicker toward Fiyero as she explained. "I'm sure some of the students in that class are . . . of our opinions. They must be, right? I mean, if there's a -" She stopped, uncertain whether she should reveal to Fiyero what Rikk had told them.

Elphaba apparently understood immediately. She turned back to Fiyero and asked, "What do you know about the Resistance?"

His eyes widened a little. "The one you're probably talking about? Nothing. Unless you mean the one in the Vinkus."

"There's one in the Vinkus?" Now it was Elphaba's turn to sound surprised.

"There has been for years. It's practically out in the open. Not to outsiders, of course -"

Elphaba interrupted with a quick wave. "You know we're safe."

"You'd better be." Fiyero coughed. "Well, ours is mostly about secession. It'll never happen, but the movement's been building steadily anyway. I suspect you're talking about something entirely different."

"We only heard about it last week," Glinda said, after a look to Elphaba for - well, not permission exactly. "It seems to be Munchkinlanders mostly, or at least that's what Rikk said." She held her breath, not certain whether she should have mentioned his name, but if they were going to trust Fiyero, they might as well trust him - right?

Fiyero looked down at Elphaba. "Is that why you asked me about him?"

"Sort of," she replied.

"Well." Fiyero thought for a moment, then slapped his hand down on the desk. "Lend me a pencil, and start telling me what I should report to the professor. Glinda's right, I have to say something - but it doesn't have to be true."


	25. Chapter 24

**~~Elphaba~~**

Glinda might have apologized, but it didn't make her less jumpy, and it didn't entirely improve her mood, either. But Elphaba had to appreciate that she was obviously trying. It didn't help that their final examinations were drawing nearer and nearer. Glinda was worried that she hadn't concentrated enough on her schoolwork in the first half of the year - and Elphaba could hardly offer her much comfort there, other than to promise to help her study - and to make matters worse, Elphaba herself was beginning to feel the strain and she knew it made her less tolerant of Glinda than she might otherwise have been. She fought not to be snappish, but at times she just couldn't help it.

On the day they had their practical examination in sorcery they walked to class together as usual, Glinda uncharacteristically silent (unless Elphaba were to count the muttering of spells under her breath). Halfway across the campus she suddenly slipped her arm through Elphaba's and looked up at her roommate with an almost defiant look on her face.

Elphaba didn't entirely understand, but she patted the hand that rested on her arm and said, "You'll be all right."

"I know. She's testing us on easy things. But still - I just don't like tests."

"Me either."

"You're top of our class without even trying, Elphie."

Elphaba frowned down at her. "I try. I study all the time. You yell at me for it, although you're doing the same thing when you think I don't notice."

"You study all the time," Glinda said, "but half the time it's to learn extra things. Same as me. You _could_ be top of our class and do half the work you do now, and you barely have to concentrate to understand things."

Her tone was suddenly almost bitter. Elphaba tightened her arm around Glinda's and said, "Stop. You know you'll be fine."

"But what if -"

"There is no 'what if.'"

Glinda fell silent again, but not for long. "I had a letter from my parents this morning."

"Did you?"

"They invited you to come for the summer."

"Oh." Elphaba had forgotten that she was expecting that. "Did you ask them?"

"Not yet, they offered on their own. They know you're my roommate and all."

"Oh," Elphaba said again.

Glinda, seemingly either relenting of her nervous mood or forgetting about it momentarily, slid her hand down Elphaba's arm and tangled their fingers together. "You are coming, aren't you?"

"I haven't asked my father yet."

"So write him."

"I was going to have Nessa bring up the idea, actually," Elphaba said. She fought to keep the usual note of neglect out of her voice. "Have her suggest that she and he could have the second half of the summer to travel alone together if I went to visit you."

"Maybe my parents should just write him," Glinda suggested. "Put the idea into his head."

"Maybe," Elphaba said. "I'll think about it."

"Just as long as you come," Glinda said. "I can't even imagine what it will be like, not having you there."

Elphaba opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, then closed it again and smiled wryly down at Glinda. "I know," she said. "Me either."

At the beginning of their examination Glinda got nervous and set a desk on fire instead of levitating it, but she regained control of herself admirably and completed every task set to her, although some more smoothly than others. At the beginning she looked ready to cry with frustration, but Elphaba didn't think the professor could tell - probably no one could have, who didn't know Glinda as well as her roommate did. Elphaba, of course, had little difficulty with anything on the examination. Since Madame Morrible's departure their lessons had grown rather simplistic, leaving them to challenge themselves on their own time.

Elphaba let her hand rest on Glinda's back as they left the building, on the way back to their dormitory. "You were wonderful," she said.

"Not entirely," Glinda replied. "But enough to scrape a good mark, I think."

"It won't be scraping."

"I'm not _ready_ for this, Elphaba," Glinda said suddenly.

"For the exam? It's over."

"No. To go home. I can't -" Glinda waved one hand nervously. "I don't feel like we can leave yet."

"Oh." Elphaba shifted her satchel on her shoulder, considering. "I think I know what you mean."

"There's too much unfinished," Glinda said. "We have so many things to worry about, and there are so many people out to get us, and we haven't figured out what to do about any of it. How can we just go home to our families for the summer and pretend everything's fine?"

"I know. I mean - anything could be happening here. And we'll lose time to work on our spells and things."

"I didn't mean that, really," Glinda confessed, looking a bit ashamed of herself. "I meant I'm a little afraid - that they'll still be spying on us, or coming after us, when we leave here. And my parents don't understand anything, and you won't be there - for a while at least. It feels like anyone could be plotting to do anything to us, and we wouldn't know."

"You're right," Elphaba said, fighting a little shiver. "But - we don't have a choice."

Glinda took her hand. "Just promise you'll come to visit soon, please? Don't stay too long with your father. My parents invited you for the whole break anyway, so they're expecting you to stay a long time."

"I'll do the best I can."

Glinda nodded and stepped away from her as they rounded the corner of the sciences building. "I'm not coming home yet. I told Professor Merlin I'd join the choir, for the end-of-term ceremony."

"Oh. All right." Elphaba stopped to finish their conversation. "Are they meeting now?"

"Mmm-hmm. But don't start studying history without me, please. I need the most help for that one."

That was the most that either of them said these days, about Glinda's reasons for missing so much history class or about what had happened to her in their classroom. Elphaba nodded. "I'll wait."

"Thanks." She turned away, long curls flying over her shoulder, and strode off in a rather un-Glinda-like manner. Elphaba felt as though she wanted to say something else to her, but she couldn't think what.

**~~Fiyero~~**

He saw Glinda practically flying across the campus, long hair streaming out behind her, and veered out of his way to place himself in her path. "Glinda."

She seemed startled to see him, but she stopped. "Fiyero."

"How was the exam?"

She looked down at the grass for a moment before replying. Things between them had been thawing slowly, but there was still a long way to go. "Fine," she said finally.

"No accidents?"

"I set a desk on fire," she admitted. The bit of color that stained her cheeks was welcome; it made her look more like the Glinda he remembered from their first meeting.

He laughed. "I'm sure the professor was able to put it right out."

"No," Glinda said. "She tried. Elphaba had to do it."

"I suppose sometimes brute power _is_ required." He smiled down at her. "But you should be proud of yourself - even if it was a mistake, you created something so strong it took Elphaba to undo it."

"I guess." Glinda shifted the small pile of books in her arms. "I didn't think of it that way."

"Where are you headed?"

"Choir practice."

"Oh. Well." There honestly wasn't much interesting to be said about choir practice, from his point of view.

She nodded. "See you later."

"See you."

When he heard the light, airy sounds of chapel music floating up from the square near the dormitories, however, he knew exactly what to do. Darkness was just beginning to fall over the campus, and he was fairly certain of not being seen as he travelled the now-familiar route to the girls' dormitory and up the gnarled tree outside Glinda and Elphaba's room.

When he knocked on the window, Elphaba was bent over her desk with a lamp casting flickering yellow light on her face. Her eyebrows lifted, and she unfolded herself from the chair and came to open the window.

"Hello," she said. "What?"

"At least we're getting to 'hello' first now," he said cheerfully. "I wanted to show you something."

"What?" she repeated.

"Let me in?"

She hesitated, her fingers curling on the windowsill. "Glinda's not here . . ."

"And you don't trust me?" he asked incredulously. "Seriously, Elphaba?"

"No, of course I do. Sorry." She stepped back and opened the window more fully, extending a hand to help him in.

He gripped her arm for balance and climbed through the opening. "You know," he said conversationally as his foot sought the floor, "we'd all better hope you and Glinda have this same room next year, or these little visits are going to become much more complicated."

"You're expecting to be a frequent visitor next year?" Elphaba asked. She took off her glasses and laid them on the desk, watching him.

"Well, I figure you need a co-conspirator." He gave her his most charming grin.

"Who says we're conspiring?"

"Give me some credit, Elphie, no one's _that_ slow."

"Elphie?"

He laughed at the look on her face. "No?"

"I let you in, don't press your luck. What did you want to show me?"

"This." He took hold of her arm and pulled her back over to the window, then threw it open as far as possible.

"What -"

"Ssh." She complied, and once his ears had adjusted to the silence in the room the sounds of the choir made their way through the open window.

"Choir?" Elphaba whispered.

He nodded and whispered back, "Glinda's there, right?"

"Yes."

"I thought you'd want to hear. You seemed . . ."

"What?"

"Over-stressed."

"We're all over-stressed." Still, she was leaning closer to the open window, resting the side of her head against the bottom of the raised sash. He took the rare opportunity, while she wasn't paying attention, to observe her the way he had been able to in the old days, before they really knew each other. She did look tired - her face was pale, and the shadows under her eyes were more purple than usual. Tendrils of her hair curled around her face in the late-spring humid air; an unexpectedly girlish trait for her. The skirt she was wearing, one of the simple dark ones the girls wore when they had to have physical education classes, was too big - he would have guessed it wasn't hers. Borrowed from Glinda probably; if it hadn't been hanging so low on her narrow hips it would also have been too short. Her blouse was one the modest Elphaba would never have worn outdoors - or, he suspected, indoors either if she had expected him - it left her arms bare and was loose enough that he could see the outline of her shoulder blade when she raised her arm to brush hair out of her face. Something about the mere fact of noticing that detail made him shiver.

She would have hit him if she'd known he was thinking about brushing her hair back for her. Instead he rested one hand against the small of her back, surprised when she didn't move away.

"Thanks," she said after a moment.

"For what?"

She gestured silently out the window.

"Oh. You're welcome." He shifted his weight beside her, looking nervously down at his feet. "I'm leaving next week; are you?"

"Yes. With Nessa, on the day the dormitories close."

"Home to Munchkinland?"

She nodded, her gaze still out the window rather than on him. "And then to Glinda's, probably."

"Oh." A hundred things to say sprang to his mind, and he bit his lip. He wanted to know if she would write back, if he were to write to her over the break. He wanted to know if the entire idea was ridiculous. He wanted to tell her that he thought about her all the time, that the smell of her hair would haunt him all night after this, that the intimate sight of her so informally attired, and in Glinda's skirt, raised feelings he didn't even know how to understand. He gestured out at the tree. "I should go."

"Right." She stirred from her reverie to offer him a hand, which he took even though he didn't need it. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers, and wondered if her shiver was entirely due to the breeze or just a little bit to him, as well.

"'Night, Elphaba," he said when he was standing on the tree branch.

"Goodnight. Thanks again - this was . . . nice." She didn't exactly smile, but her expression was gentle enough that he could almost imagine one was there.

"I'll see you in class."

She nodded and leaned against the wall, still listening to the singing through her open window. He shook his head and began the climb back down the tree in the dark.


	26. Chapter 25

**~~Glinda~~**

She had read the letter from her parents at least ten times by the time Elphaba came back from checking on Nessa. Her fingers fidgeted with the fine parchment as she watched Elphaba elbow her way through the door with a pile of books in her arms, which she deposited on her desk with a loud thump.

"Nessa's?" Glinda asked, as Elphaba straightened the stack.

Elphaba nodded. "They wouldn't fit in her trunks. I've got tons of room."

"How, I don't know, your books seem to have been breeding." Elphaba laughed, and Glinda felt insanely pleased with herself. "You realize no one's going to be able to lift that last trunk of yours?"

"My father's sending two servants," Elphaba explained, turning and sitting down in the desk chair. "To help Nessie."

"Is she almost packed?"

"Just about. Madame's been helping her. We'll finish tomorrow."

"My parents wrote again."

Elphaba looked politely interested. "Oh?"

"I've just been . . ." Glinda looked down at the letter again and shook her head. "It's strange, it's as if I can't tell who they're writing to."

"What do you mean?"

"Well - look." She stretched over the end of her bed to hand the letter to Elphaba. "Read it."

Elphaba read it silently, but Glinda already had it memorized. _Our darling Galinda_, it began, _we are thrilled that Miss Elphaba will be coming to visit and of course we shall write to Governor Thropp and issue a formal invitation. It will be so lovely to have the house filled with girlish laughter again._

Glinda was fairly certain she could tell when Elphaba had got to that part, because she started coughing uncontrollably.

"Keep reading," Glinda said, rolling her eyes heavenward.

Elphaba switched then, for some reason, to reading aloud. "'We will send your chaperone' - really?"

"Really."

"Do you have one all the time?"

"Only when I'm alone." Glinda gestured for her to go on.

"Then you're never really alone, are you? Well - 'your chaperone, to meet you at Shiz station. We're so looking forward to seeing our princess again and hearing all about the things you've been learning at school, and your splendid stories about the Wizard and the Emerald City . . ." To Elphaba's credit she managed not to fall into sarcasm, but rather read the entire letter as if it troubled her a bit.

"See what I mean?" Glinda asked, holding her hand out for the letter.

Elphaba folded it over before handing it back. "They don't know anything that happened this year, do they?"

"Not really," Glinda admitted. "I didn't tell them much. It would have upset them."

A different kind of person, perhaps, would have reminded Glinda that it was her parents' job to look after her and not her job to spare them from the ugliness of life. It didn't surprise her to hear no such thing from Elphaba, whose parents had probably not spared her from much. Elphaba only said, "They don't read newspapers?"

"Most of what happened here would never have made it into papers in Gillikin," Glinda pointed out. "And they only read the society page and the business pages anyway."

Elphaba made a soft, thoughtful noise under her breath. "Well," she said, "they'll have to notice you've rather grown up."

"I'm not sure they will. And I don't think it's growing up really, anyway, or that's not how they'd see it." Glinda paused in concentration, biting her lip while she considered how to explain. "My cousin had a baby last month . . ."

"That's - nice?" Elphaba looked somewhat at a loss. "If she wanted one."

"She did. I think." Glinda smoothed her skirt over her outstretched legs. "The thing is she got married last year - when she was eighteen, you know, she didn't want to go to university - and now she's had a baby, and I haven't seen her since I left home of course, but I've had letters from her, and she doesn't seem any different from before. And she must be grown up, I mean, if you're not grown up when you're someone's mother, then when are you? But - well, I've just been wondering . . ." She sighed fretfully enough that Elphaba came to sit on the bed with her.

"Something wrong?" Elphaba asked.

"I just don't think I was expected to grow up, the way you mean it. Maybe not ever." Glinda frowned at her lap. "I think what you mean by growing up, where I come from just means - I don't know, becoming less - womanly, or . . . something."

Elphaba nodded, clearly trying very hard to sympathize. Obviously she had never worried, and no one had ever worried on her behalf, that education and studiousness would make her less girlish - Glinda was one of the very few people who'd ever expected Elphaba to be girlish at all anyway. And Elphaba's sister - pretty as she was, Nessa was still in another class altogether because of her handicap, and because she would need to rule a province one day. Elphaba leaned back on her hands and shifted herself closer to Glinda. "Are you worried they won't notice you've . . . changed, or that they won't understand, or - are you worried they'll think it's a bad thing, if they do notice?"

"I'm not sure," Glinda replied honestly. "I think they expected me to go off and learn sorcery and study pleasant things and come home with a lot of fancy tricks and still be pretty and - well, you know."

"I wouldn't worry about that last part," Elphaba said, both fondly and with a touch of irony. "But - you're afraid they'll find you too serious?"

"I'm afraid," Glinda said, realizing it was true as she was speaking, "that if they do, they won't let me come back. Mostly they'd let me do anything I wanted, but if they thought it was for my own good . . ."

"What would they have you do instead?"

"Stay in Gillikin and go to society parties and find a suitable husband." Glinda leaned her head against Elphaba's shoulder for comfort. "Thank goodness Fiyero has such a reputation - they never said a word against him, but when I wrote that it had ended they didn't seem terribly upset." She strongly suspected that Elphaba had almost laughed, but she could forgive her for that. Especially when Elphaba was always so willing to sit and listen and hold her hand and never tell her she was being silly, even when they both knew she _was_.

"I think," Elphaba said, shifting her weight so that she could take Glinda's hand, "you could make them think everything was just fine if you wanted to. You're good at that."

"But I don't want to. Or I don't want to _have_ to. I want . . ." Glinda laughed as if to indicate that she knew she was being childish. "I want to be able to run to my parents and tell them all my troubles and have them fix everything. And I know they can't fix any of it, and even if they tried they'd fix it by taking me away from everything - from school, from you - and seeing that I have a perfect husband and a baby within a year and never leave Gillikin again."

"I think that sounds - comfortable," Elphaba said gently, cautiously. "Are you sure you don't want to have that as a choice? To know that if it gets to be too much, they _would_ pull you out of all of it?"

"I can't think that way," Glinda replied. "If I do, I might choose it, and it wouldn't take long for me to hate myself for it. I wouldn't really be any happier. Besides," she added, twining her fingers with Elphaba's, "I wouldn't really want to leave you. And - I want to do something better. Or more important. Or something."

"Still, it's a choice."

"No, it's not," Glinda said, realizing that this also was true. "It's a not-choice. It's telling my parents I'm in over my head and then letting them choose for me."

Elphaba paused. "We _are_ in over our heads," she said.

"I know." They were quiet together for a long while, and then Glinda said, "So my parents are just going to have to think everything's fine, I suppose. I imagine they'll think _you're_ taking care of me, once they meet you."

"Have you - warned them about me, at all?"

"I haven't _warned_ them about anything," Glinda said, knowing exactly what Elphaba meant. "I've told them all about you, of course. Well - mostly."

"So they're expecting . . ." Elphaba couldn't, apparently, suppress a glance down at her green hand entwined with Glinda's " . . . me?"

"They're expecting my best friend," said Glinda very firmly, and refused to answer any more questions. Of course she had told her parents that her roommate was green - to her considerable shame, she had told them so on her very first night at school, when to have such an _indescribable_ roommate had seemed like the worst thing that could happen to her. And she had the whole first half of the summer to make sure they knew what to expect when Elphaba arrived - and to make sure they weren't somehow under the impression that she had been speaking metaphorically.

"Anyway," Elphaba said, "you'll see them tomorrow."

"Yes." Glinda tightened her grip on Elphaba's hand. "I _will_ miss you."

"You'll forget all about me once you get home and see your family again."

"I will not." Her hand tightened even further, although Elphaba didn't complain. "Will you miss me tomorrow, when you're here alone?"

"Yes," Elphaba said plainly. "It will seem strange to have the room to myself."

"You ought to go down and sleep in Nessa's room."

"Maybe I will. The way I used to when she was frightened."

"Did you?" Glinda asked, charmed by the idea.

"Well, she could hardly come and crawl into my bed on her own. So I went to her."

"During thunderstorms?"

"Oh, no." Elphaba smiled a little, remembering. "Her nanny would stay with her whenever there were thunderstorms, to make sure she wouldn't cry and wake Father."

"Then what was she frightened of, when you stayed with her?"

Elphaba's smile widened. "The nanny. She was very cross sometimes."

"Did you have a nanny as well?"

"Not exactly," Elphaba said. "One of the maids looked after me I think, until Nessa was born and our mother died. Then Nessa's nanny looked after me as well, but she was mostly there because of Nessa. Because she couldn't do much for herself, you know."

Elphaba didn't speak often about her childhood, not that Glinda couldn't guess why. But still, these little gems of information fascinated Glinda. Each one revealed to her made Glinda feel as though she didn't really know Elphaba at all. Her roommate might think she didn't keep secrets, but she didn't give much away, either.

Glinda looked absently out the window, still holding tight to Elphaba's hand. It was nearly entirely dark, and the noises of the dormitory had gone quiet around them. "Will you stay here with me, tonight?" she asked softly. She didn't think she could entirely bear to let go of Elphaba sooner than she had to, knowing that she would be facing more than a month all on her own.

Elphaba smiled. "Are you frightened of something?"

"Yes," Glinda said, hoping to lighten the atmosphere. "Nessa's nanny."

**~~Elphaba~~**

For as much as she'd managed to say in all the previous days, when Glinda was finally leaving for her train she didn't seem able to say anything. She finally just hugged Elphaba so tightly it almost hurt, tears beginning to glisten in her eyes, and Elphaba was afraid that anything she could possibly say would only make matters worse. She did promise, finally, to write as soon as she got home and to make sure right away that her father would let her go to visit Glinda - and then and only then Glinda managed to follow the porter to the train station to meet her chaperone. She had asked Elphaba not to come with her; Elphaba secretly thought it was because Glinda was afraid of crying in front of the crowds of other departing students.

Their room that night was not just quiet; it was cold and echoing and almost frightening in its emptiness. Every sound Elphaba made seemed to be magnified a hundred times. The quiet unnerved her, especially knowing that most of the other students, including Fiyero and the precious few others that Elphaba really knew, had left the campus already. The empty, completely bare bed on the other side of the room unnerved her even more - somehow the absolute clean emptiness made it seem as though Glinda had never been there at all. Elphaba curled herself into a ball in the center of her bed and tried opening a book, but it was no use. It was too quiet, and the nervous discomfort was making her stomach hurt. Finally, barefoot and with her quilt thrown over her nightgown, she crept downstairs and knocked on Nessa's door.

Nessa's room couldn't have provided a greater contrast to Elphaba's, but then, Nessa never had a roommate and Madame Greyling lived in the suite year-round. For the first time Elphaba wondered whether that was frightening, to live all summer in one suite in an otherwise completely empty dormitory. But for now the fire was lit, and quiet music drifted from Madame's closed door, and Nessa hadn't even gotten ready for bed yet. She was carefully curling her hair at the mirror when Elphaba slipped in.

"Lonely?" Nessa asked, barely glancing at her sister's reflection behind her in the mirror.

"A little," Elphaba said, seating herself on the end of Nessa's bed and wrapping the quilt tighter around her shoulders. "It's quiet upstairs."

"Well, almost everyone _is_ gone," Nessa said pragmatically, ignoring (willfully, Elphaba thought) the fact that really it mostly mattered that _Glinda_ was gone. "If Father hadn't had to go to Center Munch we could have gone home today too."

"I'm sure he tried to change his trip," Elphaba murmured. For Nessa's comfort he would have at least tried almost anything.

"He did," Nessa said, "but the Assembly insisted and you know how angry they were with him last month."

Elphaba didn't know, but she honestly didn't care enough to ask, either.

"Can I ask you something?" Nessa set down her hairbrush and turned herself carefully away from the mirror.

"Of course."

"Do you think Father would disapprove if I saw Kiren while we're home?"

Elphaba's eyebrows lifted in some surprise; she hadn't realized Nessa had even been talking to the boy. Then again, perhaps she should have guessed when his friend stopped bothering her on his behalf. "I don't know," she said. It was a difficult question - ordinarily their father wouldn't have denied Nessa anything that she thought was proper to do, but on the other hand, he was unlikely to think almost any boy was good enough for her, either.

Nessa frowned prettily. "I don't know either. I suppose I'd better say he's just a friend from school and see how Father reacts."

"If you like," Elphaba said, "you could say he's a friend of _mine_. I'm not sure Father will believe it, but it certainly wouldn't surprise him to have someone come to visit me and spend all his time talking to you instead."

"Elphie," Nessa scolded gently, but Elphaba could see that she was considering the wisdom of the suggestion. "Would you do that, really?"

"Of course." Elphaba paused. "I could use a favor in return."

"What?"

"Suggest to Father that he send me to stay with Glinda for the second half of the summer?" Now that the worst was out, Elphaba started talking fast. "You could ask him to take you to the City, or to the summer house in Nest Hardings. Tell him if I went to visit Glinda then he wouldn't have to bring me along."

"Has Glinda invited you?" Nessa asked curiously.

"Yes. Her parents were going to write to Father. But I'm afraid he won't let me."

Nessa nodded thoughtfully. "All right. Though I'll be sorry to be without you that whole month."

"I know. I'll miss you, too," Elphaba said.

"You won't, you'll be with Glinda."

"Glinda's not my sister."

"No, she's not." Nessa sighed. "Want to sleep here tonight?"

"Yes, please. It's too quiet upstairs."

"All right." Another sigh. "You don't think - I mean, he's even smaller than Boq."

"Kiren? He seems very . . . dignified."

"I suppose." Nessa shrugged. "It's not as if I know how tall I am, anyway." She rolled herself toward the bureau. "Help me dress? Then I won't have to bother Madame. We have an early start tomorrow - but at least we'll be home by lunchtime."

"Yes," Elphaba said. "We will."


	27. Chapter 26

**~~Elphaba~~**

"Elphaba."

She nodded, fighting the strong desire to bite her nails. "Father."

He had already greeted Nessa buoyantly, and now he turned around to watch the servants wheeling her across the station. "Careful!" he shouted harshly. He turned to follow them, gesturing with one hand for Elphaba to follow. It seemed that was all she was going to hear from him for the moment. She supposed she should be relieved.

The climb up the stairs to her bedroom in the Governor's house seemed to take more energy than ever before. Her foot creaked on the same stair it always had, and her fingers passed unseeing over the familiar chip in the banister. The Governor had thrown something heavy - Elphaba couldn't remember exactly what, and certainly no one had ever discussed it - after the doctor who had told him that his second daughter would never walk. It had gouged the wood, but no one had been paying much attention to things like that then - there was the lame baby, and the Governor's wife would be dead within the hour.

Her bedroom smelled musty, and there was a layer of dust on just about every surface, but the smell underneath was one she recognized. Warm Munchkinland summer and just a bit of mold from the old pipes, and the smell of the tar they'd have used to repair the roof after winter. She set her suitcase on her bed and stood in the center of the room biting her lip, not quite sure of what to do.

She heard feet in the hallway outside her door - servants probably, her father almost never came to this part of the house - and stretched herself out on the bed, flipping the pillow over to the less-dusty side and breathing in the familiar dry scent of the lye they used on the white linens. It was less harsh than the stuff they used in the laundry at Shiz, but somehow she had grown more used to that. Perhaps because it was softened, in their room, by Glinda and her habitual aroma of cherry blossoms and something Elphaba had never quite been able to place. Elphaba rubbed her hand over her face and almost imagined that her skin carried a little bit of Glinda's scent.

"She's different."

The booming voice in the hall was one she recognized and yet didn't - the servants never spoke to her much and she could only barely tell one from another when she was looking at them. The heavy oak door muffling his voice didn't help much, either.

"She looks the same to me," another voice responded, equally familiar and unfamiliar.

"Nah," said the first, "there's something about her . . ."

A snort, and the second man said, "She's still a horror. Nothing's going to change that. You'd better get those things carried in or the Gov'nor'll have both our heads."

Elphaba turned her face into the pillow as the feet moved away from the door in opposite directions. It wasn't certainly, that she had ever _forgotten_ what a horror she was, but . . . at school there was just Nessa from the family, and there was Boq speaking to her almost normally after his initial horrified reaction, and there was Rikk, who had shaken her hand without batting an eye, and there was Fiyero, who turned the same almost-charming smile on her as he did on everyone else, and there was the Wizard, even, who thought she made too much of being different - and there was Glinda, who had certainly been just like everyone else at first but who now thought nothing of throwing her arms around Elphaba twelve times a day, of taking her hand or kissing her, and who never seemed to remember that Elphaba's skin should have been horrific, disgusting.

Elphaba would have laughed hysterically at anyone who had suggested earlier in the year, when she had first met _Galinda_, that she would be wishing for her so desperately now. No matter how much in vain, Glinda would have been outraged at those strange disembodied voices outside the door. She would have crawled into bed with Elphaba and started aimlessly unbraiding her hair and said that she loved her and that she was beautiful, and however untrue and however uncomfortable it made Elphaba to hear it, it would have been a comfort nevertheless. Elphaba sighed.

She spent long days taking books outside, which was not so different from anything she had done before at home. She did wonder why she had ever been so attached to keeping her hair so severely off her face; here, outside the comfortable sphere she had finally carved out at school, she was finding it terribly convenient to let her curtains of dark hair hide her as she bent over her books. Every now and then she glanced up and saw one of the servants, one she didn't entirely recognize, watching her carefully, but she didn't sense that he was dangerous in any way. Just curious, and curious in a not-disgusted way was unique enough that she let him be. And in any case all the servants were hovering, now that Kiren had begun his frequent visits to discuss philosophy work with Elphaba, during which he spent all his time talking with Nessa in the gardens while Elphaba studiously ignored them from as far away as possible.

As instructed, she wrote to Glinda immediately on her very first day home. She didn't know what to say, really, but she managed to convey that the journey had been fine, that Nessa had travelled well and without any trouble, that her father had not seemed angry with her, that he hadn't mentioned the Wizard, that Munchkinland was having very nice weather, and, stiltedly, that she missed Glinda very much. Glinda's letter arrived in such record time that Elphaba almost suspected she had to have written it before Elphaba's arrived, except that she responded to specific things mentioned in Elphaba's letter to her. Her message consisted mainly of greetings to Nessa, a few statements to the effect that she was angry at Elphaba's father for all the things Elphaba clearly wasn't telling the entire truth about, and a warning that her parents had written the Governor that same day. She concluded with an "I love you" so subtly set off from the rest of the text and so minorly different in handwriting that Elphaba could hear it in her soft voice, in the way her tone changed when she really meant what she was saying. She folded the letter carefully and placed it inside a book she had already finished and packed back into her trunk.

Elphaba's father mentioned his letter at dinner. "I suppose it's good politics," was his opening statement as he watched with an eagle-eye the Munchkin who was setting soup in front of Nessa. "This girl has been taken on by the Wizard as well, is my understanding."

"Yes," Elphaba said, not elaborating.

"And she's Elphaba's friend," Nessa said gently, picking up her spoon. "It's very nice of Glinda's parents to invite her."

"Indeed." The Governor cleared his throat. "Well, Nessa, but how will you do without your sister all summer?"

Elphaba managed not to look at her sister. Nessa smiled serenely across her soup and said, "Remember Father, you promised you might take me to the Emerald City this summer. We wouldn't have taken Elphaba with us anyway, would we?"

Elphaba winced, but it was of course the right thing to say.

"And anyway," Nessa continued, "Elphaba's already been there so many times."

"That's true," their father said, although Elphaba knew full well that her experience of the Emerald City would never have borne any part of his decision to take her there or not. "Well, I suppose I'd better write them back."

Elphaba tried not to smile, especially because she was already predicting how long it would take Glinda to write with her happiness and relief once her parents received the Governor's permission.

Her strangest letter came a day after Glinda's second, causing Elphaba a moment of confusion as she wondered what in Oz Glinda could have to say again so soon. She had more than a moment of confusion when she realized the letter was actually from Fiyero. She turned it over in her hands several times as she watched the servant who had handed it to her departing across the lawn. The seal was queer-looking and the wax very hard - she had never received a letter from the Vinkus before and didn't recognize whatever it was they used. Some of its red color stayed on her finger as she carefully broke it open.

She rolled her eyes instinctively at the sight of his sprawling handwriting, feeling at once as if she were reading over one of his essays before class. The sensation was not lessened once she actually started reading the letter; he had, oddly, a great deal to say about politics in the Vinkus and the position of the royal family on communications with the Emerald City and on new trading regulations - Elphaba was surprised, confused, and almost bored for several minutes before she realized what he was telling her. The Vinkus was considering withdrawing from direct trading with the Emerald City because of the stricter Animal laws that affected the trade routes. That had her biting her lip and staring at the letter for quite some time, and not only because she was rather impressed that he had managed to be so subtle.

The bottom of the letter contained greetings to Nessa that could have been copied from Glinda's letter - perhaps they had compared notes? - general expressions of concern that she was all right and that nothing troublesome was happening, and a brief phrase, blending so perfectly with the rest of his loose scrawl that it seemed unreal - "And I miss you, Elphaba" - that made her run her fingers over the sheet of paper in wonder at the strangeness. The fact that he followed it with, "And Glinda, too," didn't make it any less strange.

She wrote back, awkwardly, her handwriting more tightly cramped than usual, and with even less idea of what to say than when she wrote to Glinda.

When the time came for her to leave Munchkinland at last, her father was about as distraught as she had expected. He sent her off to the station with a servant and a warning not to be any trouble in Gillikin, and thankfully that was it.

Halfway to Gillikin she could easily tell that they were leaving the South - the trees were taller and fuller, and the window against which she was leaning her head was getting cool. The sun had stopped pouring directly through the glass, and she actually needed her sweater.

She stepped nervously down the train steps into the twilight of a cool evening, suitcase propped against her foot for balance and her hair swinging into her eyes. It took her less than a moment to spot Glinda, who looked - wonderful. Even in the semi-dark she seemed brighter than she had been those last months at school. Her hair looked longer, even though Elphaba knew it couldn't have grown much in only a month. The dress she was wearing was clearly new; it fit her better than the ones that had become too loose. The sun had turned her nose just slightly pink, Elphaba noticed as she came closer, but it fit her complexion so perfectly that it only made her prettier.

Glinda didn't say a word at first; she only crossed the platform with quick, firm steps and threw herself into Elphaba's arms. Looking nervously over Glinda's shoulder at the tall, fair, wealthy Gillikinese couple who had to be her parents, Elphaba set down her suitcase and gingerly embraced Glinda in return, not at all certain how these people would react to the sight of the green monstrosity anywhere near their daughter. They didn't make a move to come closer, and Elphaba let herself relax just a little bit at the rush of familiarity that spread through her, at Glinda's warmth against her, the smell of her hair, the fingers that scrunched into the fabric of Elphaba's sweater. With a little jolt of surprise Elphaba realized that, save for Nessa once or twice, no one had touched her since Glinda had gone away. It was the natural state of things for her, but over the year Glinda had managed to acclimate her to having another person so close and actually _wanting_ to be in contact with her.

Before Glinda quite pulled away she tilted her face up and kissed Elphaba's jaw, near her chin. "I'm so glad you're here," she whispered, eyes shining. "Come on."

**~~Glinda~~**

Elphaba was fidgeting with nervousness, although Glinda couldn't see why. After all, her parents did know exactly what to expect. And Elphaba really was looking wonderful - it wasn't one of those days where the sight of her might have frightened a small child, green or no, because of the severity of her expression or the deep concentration in her eyes or the harsh black she shrouded herself in. She was looking almost soft this evening - the dim light couldn't have hurt, it made her appear almost silvery - and more girlish than Glinda remembered. She supposed it was because in her head Elphaba was sometimes more the powerful witch than the girl who flushed when boys tried to talk to her and who held Glinda's hand when she was upset.

Glinda's parents both blinked at the sight of Elphaba, but they were well-prepared and they showed almost no reaction. Her father held out a hand and said something terribly formal that Glinda paid little attention to; she was watching her mother, whose eyes were sweeping up and down Elphaba's form with an unreadable expression. She finally put a hand on her husband's arm and said, "That should be enough, darling, the poor thing isn't here as an emissary. She's been travelling all day and I'm sure she's exhausted, aren't you, dear?"

Elphaba barely managed to nod and say, "Thank you," but Glinda was watching carefully and she could tell that Elphaba was relieved. The Uplands might not have been the warmest people in all of Oz, but in terms of the way people usually reacted to Elphaba this might as well have been a tickertape parade. And besides that, Glinda's parents weren't being cold or distant and their muted greeting was little to do with Elphaba herself, Glinda knew. They were simply being calm and cautious toward someone they didn't know, and someone who had been heavily influencing their daughter in their absence. No matter what Glinda told them, _they_ weren't the ones who had spent all year as Elphaba's roommate and there was no way she could make them feel the same way about her friend as she did. They all just needed a bit of time to get used to each other. In all, Glinda was pleased. She held Elphaba's hand in the carriage all the way home, just partially hidden under the folds of their skirts, and managed not to chatter the entire way.

When she led Elphaba up to the guest bedroom adjacent to her own, Elphaba hesitated in the doorway. "This is all right, isn't it?" Glinda asked, dancing somewhat nervously behind her taller friend. "I'm just next door, there."

"It's lovely," Elphaba said softly, taking a step further. Privately Glinda thought that this rather ordinary guest room in their rather ordinary, if well-to-do, home couldn't be much compared to the Governor's mansion back in Munchkinland, but she didn't say anything. She just smoothed her skirts, ran a gentle, matter-of-fact hand over Elphaba's hair, and said, "I should let you sleep, you look worn out. We can talk tomorrow." She didn't want to leave, she wanted to stay and wrap her arms around Elphaba and tell her everything she had been waiting to say but wasn't willing to write down about home and her parents and all sorts of things she would have been mortified for anyone to see but Elphaba - but Elphaba did look exhausted and Glinda knew it wouldn't be fair to keep her up. After all, they had all the rest of the summer, and the whole school year after that. They had forever.

"All right," Elphaba said, turning to face Glinda with her fingers twitching at her sides. Glinda recognized the sign that her friend didn't know quite what to do, and so she stepped forward and hugged Elphaba tightly.

"I've missed you so much," she said. "I'm so, so glad you're here now."

"So am I," Elphaba said, her hands very slowly coming to rest on the back of Glinda's head. She was tentative and nervous; it had been too long, clearly, since she had been around someone who cared for her properly. Glinda closed her eyes and pressed a brief kiss to the side of Elphaba's face before she pulled away. Elphaba's family made her entirely too sad sometimes, but she'd make up for it.

Glinda lasted what she suspected was about an hour in her own bed before she finally gave up. She crept as quietly as she could into the next room, pondered and then abandoned the idea of waking Elphaba on purpose, and instead just slipped carefully into the bed and nestled herself close to Elphaba's back. Elphaba was clearly awake, but she lay still and let Glinda adjust them into a comfortable, familiar position with Glinda's arms tight around her. Glinda settled her head onto the pillow and closed her eyes, but after a moment Elphaba gently extricated herself from Glinda's hands and shifted away. Glinda felt her face growing hot and thought her heart might have frozen for a moment, but Elphaba simply turned onto her other side and shifted close again, hesitantly reaching for Glinda and guiding her close. This was new, mostly, and Glinda couldn't quite keep back a small, contented sigh as she rested her cheek against Elphaba's shoulder. Perfect as her parents were, somehow no one had ever managed to make her feel quite as safe and as _loved_ as Elphaba, even if Elphaba couldn't manage to express it in any other way. She thought she might burst in gratitude at having her back - she couldn't think of anything right now that could be better than this.


End file.
